


The SCP-975 Files

by HarbingerInfinit



Series: SCP-975 Files [1]
Category: SCP Foundation, The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Universe - SCP Foundation, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Horror, Infection, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, SCP-975, Transformation, outbreak, viral - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarbingerInfinit/pseuds/HarbingerInfinit
Summary: There was some things Man was not meant to know, but what would it be of any luck that the next horror came from such a small, innocent town known as Royal Woods? The Loud Siblings are now forcibly thrust into the life of such horrors when they became them, Lincoln's sisters and brother was captured by the SCP Foundation, and with his friends and allies, they will know the might and power...of SCP-975.
Relationships: Benny/Luan Loud/Maggie, Lincoln Loud/Ronnie Anne Santiago/Sid Chang, Lio Loud/Kat Ketchum, Lori Loud/Carol Pingrey, Luna Loud/Sam Sharp, Lynn Loud Jr./Christopher Alexander Taylor Junior
Series: SCP-975 Files [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047187
Kudos: 6





	1. The Prologue Part 1

**The End of the Beginning**

Morning peaked over the horizon of Royal Woods, Michigan, nearing the end of November and the beginning of a new month. However this was no mere average morning, no miling masses living their lives, no sounds of cars and ambient chatter. What one would usually expect to hear and see was gone, and replaced by a damaged town. Smoke billowing out from distant burning buildings,the acrid smell of metal and wood traveled throughout the area. Distant animalistic cries and gunfire still echoed in the distance, but for this triplet of unordinary individuals walking down the damaged roads, it seemed somewhat like home if they squint hard enough for the first two, if they move past the flipped over cars, corpses and debris littering the street.

“You know, never really expected that to go that bad.” Lincoln started with a dejected look on his face, some scuffs and scratches on his body was slowly closing up as his felt a reassuring hand on his right shoulder, he looked to see Ronnie-Anne looking at him concerned.

“Can’t beat yourself over this sort of thing, I didn’t know there was even some super secret government agency until yesterday.” She told him as the third member giggled at that statement.

“She thought I was lying that there was a government conspiracy and look at this, government conspiracy! Though we’re pretty lucky we got back to your town after they assumed that was everyone in your family Lincoln, but I’m kinda wondering why we’re heading to your house?” Sid inquired with a thinking expression, making Ronnie-Anne roll her eyes, “Alright Sid so you were right, I just hope those jackasses don’t hurt my family or I’m gonna gut every last one of those pigs.” 

Lincoln chuckled from their little antics, “That certainly cheered me up a little, but the reason for heading to my house is to check up on something or rather two someones, if they nabbed my sisters and my twin brother, then I have to make sure they aren’t taken either.” He explained to the half-Chinese girl.

She still looked a bit unsure of if that was the case, but she didn’t press further seeing the slight traces of distress on his features, they came across a group of dead police officers and decrepit, mutated humans, their fingers sharpened into lengthy three-inch talons, reddish-black blood splattered among them.

“Huh, Lori’s thralls, I guess Lisa’s theories of the infection works differently on others that are “intrinsincally imcompatible” was right, especially those she controls with Luan and Lio.” Lincoln mused, kneeling before a dead body of one to inspect momentarily before getting up to continue towards his house.

Ronnie-Anne whistled at the state of the Loud residence, it looked like it seen better days, but it was still more or less stable on the outside, “Wow Lame-o, didn’t expect your house to still be in good condition.” She said in an impressed tone, on the other hand, having to prevent Sid from accidentally bringing down the apartment in a sugar rush and made the place look like it was in the middle of World War III.

He nodded in agreement, an accomplished look on the boy’s face with his hands on his hips, “It sure is, thanks to Lana mostly, she’s a real handyman, and mostly because it is our home that we live in, besides I have some good memories of this place.” He reasoned as the three kids walked to the front porch and opened the door, and welcomed to the sight of something you’d see in a horror movie.

The living room was decorated with black sludge that seemed to harden into a sort of resin that was haphazardly vomited onto the walls, but it seems the rooms weren’t entirely covered in the stuff, just portions of it.

Looking at their curious and slightly grossed out expressions, Lincoln shrugged, “Hey this wasn’t entirely my vomit, the others did most of the work, though I bet you two must’ve felt the need to do the same to your stuff.” Lincoln reasoned as Ronnie-Anne and Sid looked at each other before Ronnie-Anne sighed and scratched the back of her head exasperated.

“All I’m saying is I didn’t expect to have the urge to spew black goo onto my stuff like some sort of weird marking territory.” She complained as she went to sit on the couch in the living room, kicking her feet up on the right arm while Lincoln closed the door after Sid entered the house, looking around in excited fascination.

“I’m in the house of my best friend’s boyfriend! You didn’t tell me much about Royal Woods other than the school and skating park and a bit about Lincoln, did I ever tell you Lincoln that you sure have a lot of siblings? Cuz you do and not to say you can’t ever have too many siblings am I right!?” She excitedly rambled on, practically zooming across the living room inspecting every ounce of the place while said couple blushed at the mentions before Ronnie-Anne put a stop to it.

“Sid!” She called out as her friend paused as she was going through the family picture book, looking up at her as Lincoln interjected with, “Just gonna take that…” And took the book away from her to put back into the shelf, “While I’m glad you’re enjoying your first visit at the Loud Residence, you gotta simmer down on the sugar levels.” Ronnie-Anne stated in a stern tone as she nodded in understanding.

“Sorry guys, guess it's just a matter of trying to maintain control of how hyper I get, especially after feeding.” She apologized in honesty, that one police officer sure tasted like a York peppermint patty, maybe she shouldn’t have took too much out of him.

Lincoln sighed to himself as he looked at the picture book of his brother and sisters, the family,it was just yesterday they were taken away but he felt like it was years since he last saw them, after turning into inhuman monsters, they only had each other left to depend on, to be whole, and this Symbiote in his body only reinforced that stance.

Ronnie-Anne took her feet off from the arm and sat up straight seeing him looking down, "Don't worry Lincoln, we'll find them, those men in black rejects can't hide them from us forever, but I'm kinda confused, why come back to Royal Woods? I assumed that they would be sweeping the place for us." She guessed.

The boy smiled slightly, "Well I wouldn't say they do know, at least I think so, the way we made our way back here was a bit different than getting into Great Lakes City, as far as they are concerned, Lincoln Loud, Ronnie-Anne Santiago and Sid Chang never left and are still in the city." He explained to them as they had a look of awe and understanding before Ronnie-Anne chuckled, impressed with his thinking.

“That’s not bad an idea Lincoln.” She praised, folding her arms while Lincoln smirked a little and thump his chest with pride, “They don’t call me the Man with the plan for nothing.” He remarked before he walked over to the basement door, looking back to her and said to Ronnie-Anne, "Uh, watch the door and make sure that Sid doesn't eat out the pantry, I'm not bailing her out if Lynn wants to tear off her head for eating her chocolate." He requested of her while Sid rolled her eyes with a scoff.

"So she'll rip off my head big whoop, I can regenerate like you guys remember?" She retorted smugly, hands on her hips, Ronnie-Anne looked exasperated at her boast while Lincoln shrugged, "That is true, but then again it's also likely she'll put your head into her closet with all her dirty laundry is at, and remember Lynn is pretty superstitious, she never washes her lucky clothes." He reminded her as Sid paled in fear of what was in store for her.

"Okay you made your point, curse your cruel and unusual punishment!" She said in a dramatic manner before the three of them exchange jovial chuckles, lightening up the mood, “Heh, we should find Benny one of these days, he’s a comedian too like Luan and I’m sure he’d like your spunk.” Lincoln joked before he opened the door and went down into the basement, leaving the two girls to themselves.

"You know, still weirded out by the fact that his sister has a boyfriend AND a girlfriend, like, how does that even work?" Ronnie-Anne rhetorically asked out loud, Sid's mind blanked for a moment at that before she clasped her cheeks in surprise, "Huh!?" She uttered her sentiments to the reveal.

Lincoln walked down the stairs, the perks of having been turned into some sort of supernatural entity? Night-vision for one, the air stank of of rubber and must from the fluids being trapped in a sealed up room for so long.

It was then at that point he realized that there was something he had to address as he looked towards...the audience, “Wow, its been awhile since we last talked. Hehe, its been about...a month or two since all of...this.” At the word “This”, he gestured all around to the infected fluid covering the basement as well as inert thralls lying on the ground to safe-guard the real prize of the room, two gently pulsing adult-sized cocoons, covered in hardened resin.

“So I know what you guys are thinking, “Where are my sisters and brother? Where are my parents? And what the heck is going on with Royal Woods and why are Ronnie-Anne and Sid even here?” All are probably really great questions with a whole lot of answers to give.” He mused with a weary look on his face, getting to the bottom of the stairs and walked over the bodies, they don’t do much, but for what its worth, they make a hell of a deterrent against burglars, nosy cops, that sort of thing.

“But let me just say, living with ten sisters and a twin brother, things can get pretty crazy, whether its my siblings doing something crazy, or the crazy finds us, and honestly this time? Its a bit of both.” He stated, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance at the circumstances that led them to here, but it’s in the past now, might as well roll with the dice.

“So here’s the thing, some people have a whole lot of aspirations like Leni being a Fashion designer, Lynn being the best athlete, Lio wanting to be a mangaka, reasonable things right? But never have I ever thought that we’d be a part of some horror movie played out for real, with us being the monsters, well except maybe Lucy, but that’s more just her type of thing.” Lincoln reasoned with a thoughtful expression.

All the while this was happening, Ronnie-Anne and Sid decided to see what was going on with Lincoln in the basement, it was rather an accomplishment for the latter to stay quiet and have a sense of stealth, peeking their heads a bit through the door to see that Lincoln was...talking to a wall.

“Oh hey he’s doing that “Crazy talk to the wall” thing you sometimes do Ronnie-Anne.” Sid whispered to her friend in a cheeky tone. Ronnie-Anne looked at her with a deadpan glare which she responded with a nervous smile and shrug, “What? I call it like I see it.” She explained herself.

“He’s not talking to the wall Sid, Lincoln’s just talking to the audience, which he taught me to do to deal with the insanity that living with my extended family brings sometimes.” She informed her.

“Ohhh…” Sid said in understanding, but Ronnie-Anne’s unimpressed face was quite evident that it was the opposite.

“You don’t get it do you?” She questioned.

“Well it does sound pretty crazy.” Sid answered Ronnie-Anne.

“Crazier than the fact you turn people into diabetes on legs?” She asked pointedly.

“Touche.”

“Ahem!” They were broken out of their mini-argument to see Lincoln looking at them annoyed, with hands on his hips and tapping his foot impatiently. 

“Ah!” They were startled by the sudden action, due to the fact that they were leaning heavily, the rather slippery ooze on the railing caused them to fall down the flight of stairs, ending up in a bundled heap at the bottom, Lincoln was a bit concerned until Sid thrusted a thumbs up into the air, “We’re okay!” They promptly got up and dusted themselves off.

“While I’m glad you aren’t hurt, I’m still wondering why you decided to leave the front door unguarded, I might have confidence in my planning but it never hurts to be cautious.” He reminded them, Ronnie-Anne waved off his concerns nonchalantly.

“Please Lame-o, I doubt anyone would be in the general area if your sisters’ small armies of infected and thralls are still running about, besides, Sid’s here, and I can always just light them up.” She said with a chuckle, holding her left hand up to project a small ball of energy in her hand before dispersing it.

“Heh, Lio’s still probably irritated that you got the cooler “anime” powers you know?” Lincoln joked with her as she scoffed and rolled her eyes, a playful smile was shown.

“He can kiss my ass then, not like I can control what kind of weird junk you people gave me in the first place, besides isn’t he basically The Thing 2.0? That’s pretty cool too!” She pointed out, plus that kind of ability for Lio would work pretty well considering how much of a scaredy cat he gets without his siblings around him to feel safe.

“You try telling him that when we find him.” Lincoln said amusedly before he looked to the two pods adhered to the wall and walked up to them, there was a note attached to each of them, saying “Mom” and “Dad” on the left and right respectively, at least Lana thought to label them, would’ve gotten real confusing he reasoned.

The two girls come up beside him and looked at the pods in awe and disbelief, “Woah, this just screams “High budget” film.” Sid commented on the scene, Ronnie-Anne couldn’t help but nod in agreement as she glared at Lincoln.

“Seriously? You podded your parents? I didn’t take you for a movie cliche kinda person.” She criticized the boy. Lincoln raised his hands in defense at the accusation.

“Hey this wasn’t my idea, it was mostly Luna and Lori’s idea to pod them. My idea was to just send them somewhere far away from Michigan so that they would be spared seeing what we’ve become, but I guess they figured that sooner or later they’d just killed or eaten, so we kept them here, where its safe, and plus Lisa was a bit worried if they still had their state of mind intact like ours but not as influenced they would...um...what’s the word for killing your children?” Lincoln asked them curiously.

“Filicide?” Ronnie-Anne guessed as Lincoln nodded in confirmation, “Yeah that’s the one, it's not a fact but its a possibility that it could happen.”

“But what’s the point of these pods? Will it infect them?” Sid questioned as she poked at the soft, squishy surface inquisitively.

“Based on what Lisa said, it’ll probably infect them, but keep them in a state of suspended animation until we feel ready to face them.” He told them staring at the ground, looking stricken at the idea of having to fight his parents if they were horrified by what they did.

He felt two hands on his shoulders as he looked up to see Ronnie-Anne was in front of him holding his shoulders with a sympathetic expression, “I get what you’re trying to say Lincoln, if I had to be stuck with my parents terrified of me for the rest of my life I’d be trying to postpone that mess as long as I can, just remember, I’ll be here for you every step of the way.” She promised Lincoln, the two smiled fondly with a slight blush and hugged each-other tightly and closed their eyes at this tender moment…

  
  


“Awww you two are such a cute couple!” Their eyes snapped open with a startled look, glancing to Sid who was practically gushing and starry-eyed with joy and adoration, it was like watching a romance movie play out in front of her. 

“Uhhh….” Ronnie-Anne began before she promptly shoved Lincoln away from her and into a few cardboard boxes lying around, making him yell and fell over, making the girl grimace slightly at the impact, before glaring daggers at the still squeeing Sid, “If you tell anyone about this, Lincoln’s sisters aren’t the only ones who’ll tear your head off.” She threatened her though said threat wasn’t as effective since Ronnie-Anne was still blushing.

“Ugh...speaking of sisters…” Lincoln began as he hoisted himself out of the pile of boxes, fixing his hair a little walking towards the girls.

“I guess its time to tell you how this all went down like it did.” Lincoln said to them, making Ronnie-Anne raise a curious eyebrow, that is true, they only got bits and pieces since Sid and herself lived in an entirely different city.

“Yeah, you said that one of your sisters infected you, then they infected the ones that weren’t yet, and went on a conversion spree with Royal Woods, then Chris and you paid us a visit, and then Sid got infected from her cousin and you infected me.” She stated as a matter of fact, making him nod in agreement.

“That’s true, we both did infect you two, but that comes after that whole hivemind thing got established, so before we begin, can we talk somewhere with a bit more light?” He asked gesturing to the basement, making them understand that maybe not the most comfy of places to be discussing past events, and if they’re too engrossed, someone might actually come inside and notify unwanted attention.

With that in mind, the trio walked back up the stairs and closed the basement door behind them, before taking their seats, with Ronnie-Anne and Sid on the couch and Lincoln on the single seat chair.

“Alright, so you’re probably aware this is something that no life on Earth could possibly have in the first place, right?” He asked them wanting to get that out of the way first.

They nodded.

“Good, because its not, whatever it is, its not a parasite so at the very least we’re not dying slowly, so all signs point to a Symbiote, and no its not the Marvel Comics one, that’d be hilarious, and it was summoned, by my sister Lucy, from a book that nobody even thought was actually there, just popped up in there one day.” Lincoln explained the general idea, “So with that in mind let me tell you the beginnings of madness, of how such a loving and honest family turned into well, still loving and honest, with a dash of murder and homicide actually.” Lincoln said thoughtfully, scratching his chin a little before Ronnie-Anne groaned at the white haired boy that she kinda/sorta/maybe likes get sidetracked.

“Just get to it Lame-o!” She yelled at him.

“Okay okay! This is the story of how we all became a designation of our own, a group that this Foundation labels us to be…”

“ **SCP-975.** ” 

  
  
  
  



	2. Prologue Part 2

**The First Symptoms**

Snowball effect. A snowball effect is defined as a situation in which one action or event causes many other similar actions or events. More often than not, the term snowball effect is used to describe a chain of events that result in disaster or other misfortune. And how else would one describe the end of the world as anything but a disaster. It reads like your typical Lovecraftian story: inhuman, seemingly invincible monsters wreaking havoc on a small town until they expand their horizons. Until they become a menace that threatens the lives of every being on Earth until the world is empty and desolate. Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself. Every horror movie has its origin story and that’s where we begin our twisted tale. Strap in because I promise you… it may be the last thing you ever hear. No, not you Sid, I was talking to the audi-, nevermind, it’s complicated to explain. 

Our story begins as most stories do: with an 8 year old doing her best to try conjuring up some mystical spirits. My sister Lucy has always been deep into the occult, but this attempt at summoning was sure to  _ spell _ nothing but trouble. Lucy had been studying her little spell book religiously for the past few weeks and had finally found something that piqued her interest. A spell that could supposedly summon entities from another dimension. This went far beyond simple fortune telling and tarot readings and I  _ curse _ whoever thinks that I’m just kidding around. The possibility of bringing something otherworldly into this realm was simply too appealing of an idea for Lucy to pass up. In retrospect, I can’t blame her for letting her curiosity get the better of her. After all, it worked out fabulously for us in the end.

It seems that every disaster needs an audience to watch it unfold, which is why my sister Lynn was standing by to watch Lucy work her magic. Lucy’s attempts at spell casting and summoning were less than successful. I can only assume that she figured there was no time in watching Lucy try her thing this time around since it was unlikely to end in success. Oh, how colorfully naive she was.

(“Call me naive again Stincoln and I’ll thrash you like I did that punk, 096!”)

You’ll have to forgive the interruptions. The hive mind thing kinda disrupts the thought process from time to time.

(“Oh, c’mon Linc, you have to admit this hive thing sure does generate a lot of  _ buzz” _ )

(“Although at times, I guess it can  _ sting _ a little bit”)

It also gives me no way to escape Luan and Lio’s puns.

(“Onii-chan, we are literally trapped in a locked down facility surrounded by creepy guys in suits and scientists, I am separated from all my siblings, and have a panic attack roughly every other minute… so if you want the puns to stop… PLEASE GET US OUT OF HERE! I promise I’ll be the perfect twin brother! I’ll do anything you ask me to do even if it means severing my own head and letting you use it as a bowling ball! Please Lincoln, I can’t take it in here any longer!”)

Lio, calm down. I promise I’ll get you all out of there. I was just in the middle of explaining our “tragic” backstory to our lovely family friends. Think of it as one of those fancy flashback origin story arcs in those manga stories you like to read if it helps calm you down. I promise you that everything will be alright. Just trust me. Now, where was I?

Oh right. It’s a common saying that misery loves company and that rang true on this particular day. Lucy had taken all the necessary steps needed for this summoning ritual and was going over the final chant required to breach into other worlds. An incense circle with candles burning while Lynn sat on her bed watching with intrigue.

“So how exactly is this going to work, Luc?” Lynn asked.

“It’s simple,” Lucy answered in her familiar monotone. “All I have to do is complete the chant and I’ll hopefully succeed in summoning an otherworldly force into this dimension.”

“This won’t end in like, a demonic possession or something, will it?” Lynn asked. “Because I swear, if your head starts spinning 360 degrees exorcist style, I’m bolting!”

“Relax, I’m only aiming to conjure benign spirits.” Lucy told her. “Nothing that can cause the end of the world or anything.”

Oh, how wrong she’d soon be.

“If you insist.” Lynn said.

Lucy began chanting, which sounded like an ominous mix of ancient Latin and satanic subliminal backmasking. The lights in the room began to flicker, causing Lynn to jump slightly as a breeze permeated the room. From the center of the incense circle emerged a bright blue ball of light that floated in midair.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I think it’s working!” Lynn said excitedly as Lucy continued chanting.

The ball of light grew slightly bigger, expanding little by little. The room felt like it was starting to shake as if there was an earthquake going on just outside. The lights flickered more frequently as Lynn hid behind her sheets for a few seconds before peeking her head back out. Lucy remained focused on the task at hand, not uttering a single word aside from the summoning spell that was required. Finally, it seemed the spell had reached its Crescendo as the ball of light exploded in a burst of blue light that briefly blinded the two sisters. When their vision returned, they saw nothing aside from a black scorch mark in the center of the room.

“Huh, well that was anticlimactic,” Lynn muttered.

“Sigh, maybe I messed up the spell at the last moment,” Lucy said, pulling out her spell book to go over the chant one more time. “This doesn’t make any sense, I could’ve sworn that I spoke every word correctly.”

Meanwhile, Lynn noticed that the “scorch mark” had seemingly squiggled or made some similar jerky movement. Despite her instincts telling her not to, Lynn moved in for a closer look. It was there that she saw the black stain on the floor was indeed alive and moving, making sporadic jerky movements.

“Um… Luce!” Lynn cried out to Lucy.

“Not now, Lynn, I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong,” Lucy said, her back turned to Lynn.

“Lucy, I seriously think that you’re going to wanna see this,” Lynn said before taking a step back as the black creature started slowly crawling towards her. “Uh oh”

“I told you not now, I-,” Lucy said before she heard Lynn let out a bloodcurdling scream. 

Lucy turned around to see Lynn fighting with the creature, which had clung to her face and was trying to force its way down Lynn’s throat. Lynn tried pulling the thing off, but its grasp was stronger than steel.

“Lynn! Hold on!” Lucy said as she started flipping through her spell book, trying to see if there was a way to undo her summoning spell.

“Get this thing off of me!” Lynn yelled, her voice muffled by the entity clinging to her face.

Despite putting up a valiant fight, it wasn’t enough to keep the creature from forcing itself into her mouth and down her throat. Lynn’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she lay on the floor and convulsed for a few seconds. Finally, she became still and seemingly lifeless, not making a single move. 

“Oh my god, Lynn!” Lucy screamed as she ran to Lynn’s side.

She didn’t appear to have a pulse and her veins could be seen bulging beneath her skin. Oddly enough, her veins seemed a darker hue than usual. Lucy did her best to keep from freaking out, trying to figure out how to possibly revive her. Little did she know that she wouldn’t need to as Lynn’s arm suddenly shot up and her hand grasped around Lucy’s throat.

“L-Lynn?”

“You!” Lynn hissed. “You did this to me!”

“Lynn, please calm do-,” Lucy pleaded, being cut off when Lynn interrupted her.

“I… I don’t know what’s going on,” Lynn said. “All I can think about is murder and tearing things apart!”

“You can’t be-,” Lucy said.

“But with you and the others, I can’t bring myself to do it!” Lynn said, clutching her head and asking Lucy “What the hell did you do to me?”

“I-I don’t know,” Lucy stammered. “I didn’t expect things to turn out like this!”

“Well it did!” Lynn roared. “And now I just have this unrelenting desire to feed, but this voice in my head… it wants me to spread its reach!”

“Spread what exactly?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t know,” Lynn said before smiling maliciously. “But since I can’t bring myself to kill you, I guess you’ll be the first to be given this gift!”

“Lynn, wait, don’t!” Lucy pleaded before Lynn started projectile vomiting this black bile onto her.

Lucy struggled and fought back, but it was in vain as soon the substance took its effect. The same desire to feed and spread a little mayhem came to Lucy as well. While she wasn’t as seemingly overcome with bloodlust as Lynn, it was still there, tamed only by her own strong personality as willpower. Almost immediately, Lucy came to an understanding regarding the sensations Lynn was talking about. With a sinister smile, Lucy slowly turned her head towards Lynn and said “I don’t know what your grievances are, this feels great.”

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that,” Lynn said, returning her smile.

“You’re right about one thing,” Lynn said. “We have to share this gift with the rest of our siblings. It would be selfish to keep it all to ourselves.”

“The only question is who should we spread it to first?” Lucy asked.

As if to answer their question, Lucy and Lynn heard a thud behind them and turned to see Luan crumpled to the ground. Having heard Lynn’s scream, the young comedienne had come to investigate and evidently had seen everything unfold before attempting to run, only to trip over her own two feet.

“Looks like we’ve found ourselves a volunteer!” Lynn said with a sneer before pouncing and grabbing Luan before the girl had a chance to run.

She quickly placed a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams before dragging Luan into her and Lucy’s room to convert her to seeing things from their point of view. I’ll spare you the details of that sordid affair and move on to the next morning. I awoke to the sound of my brother tearing apart our room, frantically looking for something.

“Do you mind explaining what you’re doing?” I asked Lio as I sat up out of bed.

“Looking for my lucky pen,” Lio casually explained. “I can’t draw my manga without it!”

“Can’t you just use another pen?” I asked him.

“Don’t be crazy, that’s like telling Van Gogh not to cut his ear off,” Lio scoffed, searching up and down for his pen. “Speedwagon on a speed wagon, where the heck is it?”

“Looking for something?”

The two of us looked up to see Luan standing in our doorway. Right off the bat we could tell that something was different about her. She had a manic look in her eyes and her lips were contorted into a twisted and sadistic grin. She appeared to have a more vibrant aura surrounding her and at times it looked like she was livelier when she moved.

Lio and I exchanged a look before Lio explained “I was looking for my lucky pen.”

“You mean this?” Luan asked, pulling Lio’s pen from her flower.

“Yeah…?” Lio said. “How did it end up with you?”

“You left it in my room after we came back from clowning at that party, remember?” Luan reminded him.

“Hmm, I guess that makes sense,” Lio said, taking his pen back. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it!” Luan said, smiling at Lio as she walked away.

Taking a closer look, I noticed that there was some black slime or ink or something covering Lio’s lucky pen, something that went unnoticed by my brother.

“Well, you’ve got your pen back so you can stop freaking out now,” I told him.

“Sorry about that, brother” Lio apologized as he grabbed his notepad.

“By the way, do you still plan on going out with me today?” I asked him.

“Going where?” He asked, a tinge of fear audible in his voice.

“Don’t you remember?” I asked him. “Clyde and I need a third man to go go-karting with and you promised to come with us.”

“Right, right,” Lio said, nodding his head, although he still sounded very much afraid. “Apologies onii-chan, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and I guess my promise must’ve slipped my memory.”

“No big deal,” I told him. “You don’t even have to drive karts with us if you don’t want to, I just need you to watch our backs, make sure nobody tries anything.”

“You can count on me,” Lio said and for a brief second, I could’ve sworn I saw him shudder as his eyes grew wide before returning to normal size.

I didn’t know what it was, but something about today felt off. Things seemed even more off when I noticed during breakfast that neither Lynn, Lucy, or Luan were even touching their food. They weren’t even on practising sports or reading poetry or cracking jokes, they were just… watching. At least, that’s what it looked like. Every once in a while, I’d see the 3 of them exchange a smirk before going back to simply watching. I was starting to wonder if Lucy and Lynn were in on some type of prank set up by Luan or something. Their eerie behavior was seriously unsettling. When I finished my own breakfast, I couldn’t get out of there soon enough. I looked over at Lio and gestured to him that it was time to leave. It was then that I noticed that he hadn’t touched his food either, nor had he drawn in his notebook. Okay, now I was more than certain that Luan was planning a huge prank and given how quickly my brother would be willing to lend her a hand, I knew I had to get out of there and quick.

Taking precaution to not come off as sketchy, I moved away from the table and headed for the door. Lio followed behind me, looking absolutely terrified at the thought of venturing outside. Nevertheless, he still chose to follow me as I headed to Clyde’s house to meet up with him. On the way over to Clyde’s, I noticed a few abnormalities about Lio, every time we passed a stranger, he would instinctively grab my arm for comfort. That wasn’t the strange part, the strange part was just how strong his grip was. He was holding onto my arm for dear life and at times, I thought he was going to break my arm with how tight he was hanging onto it.

“Yo, Lio, could you ease up a little bit?” I asked him. “It feels like you’re crushing my arm.”

“Oh, sorry,

. brother,” Lio apologized before letting go.

When we arrived at Clyde’s house, Lio seemed to have calmed down considerably, being less jumpy and antsy. He remained calm all the way until we reached the go-karting ring, where his anxiety around people seemed to flair up considerably. More than usual, I mean. He looked like he was in a constant state of fight or flight mode, seeming on edge with each passing second.

“Are you okay, man?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Lio insisted.

“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be,” Clyde said. “We can always call Chris and see if he can take your place.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Lio said. “I don’t wanna let my brother down nor do I wanna be a burden to Aniki.”

“Alright man,” I said, sensing that something greater was going on here. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. 

(You know for being the so called Man with a Plan, you sure are slow at picking up on hints)

What was I supposed to do? Just automatically jump to the conclusion that three of my sisters and my brother had been turned into eldritch abominations? For all I knew, there could’ve been something in the water that was making them act funny.

(Fair point, but I thought you’d be a bit more…)

(Perceptive?)

(That’s the word, thanks Lisa!)

Anyways… Lio insisted on staying behind and watching our backs, so he took a seat near the tracks all by his lonesome. Once he was by himself, he seemed to calm down considerably, visibly breathing a huge sigh of relief. That didn’t stop him from constantly looking over his shoulder and occasionally fidgeting. Thinking he’d be okay, Clyde and I selected our go karts and began racing in laps around the tracks. For the first few minutes, everything went fine… then some blowhard had to mess with my shy guy of a brother.

“You’re in my seat,” said some redhead kid with a man bun.

Lio instinctively jumped out of his seat, shouting “Stay back!”

“What’s wrong, you little shrimp, scared or something?” The bully taunted, reaching over to ruffle Lio’s hair.

“Don’t touch me!” Lio barked.

“Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do if I do?” The bully teased.

Lio leapt nearly ten feet in the air and screamed “ぼくのそばに近寄るな!” 

“Hmpf, what a freak!” The bully said, walking over to Lio.

“山手!” Lio suddenly snapped, pouncing on the bully and punching him repeatedly in the face. “くそくらえ!”

That was what got Clyde and mine’s attention as we immediately hopped out of our go karts and ran over to where Lio was pummeling the bully. Now  _ this _ was really out of character for my brother as for the most part whenever he was scared, he’d just run away rather than try fighting. As we got closer, I could see the fear in his eyes as he continued slamming his fist into the bully’s face again and again, not letting up at all.

“Lio… Lio!” I shouted, Clyde and I grabbing him by his arms and trying to pull him off the bully. “Chill man, chill!”

“ぼくの君を殺すぞ!” Lio shouted at the bully, still punching like a man possessed.

“Come on, man, let it go!” Clyde said as we finally pulled Lio off of the kid. 

By this point, there were a *lot* of people staring at us, which only served to unnerve my brother even more. The kid was out cold, his face swollen, bruised, and bloodied from the assault.

“I think now would be a good time to get out of here,” Clyde suggested.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said, dragging Lio away before he freaked out even more. On our way home, we were eventually able to get him to calm down at which point I asked him “What the hell was that about, man?”

“I… I don’t know,” Lio said. “I honestly don’t know what came over me. When that kid came over to me, I felt this overwhelming sense of fear. Like, I was more afraid than I’ve been in my entire life. I just felt like something bad was going to happen if I didn’t strike back.”

“But dude, you went totally berserk on that guy,” Clyde pointed out. “You were probably going to kill him if we didn’t pull you off of him.”

“Forgive me as that was never my intention,” Lio apologized. “I just… it’s like… I don’t know how to describe it, but something was telling me that if I didn’t retaliate, I was going to regret so I acted on my impulses and fought back.”

“Just try to keep your impulses in check next time,” I advised him as we dropped Clyde off at his house.

On our way back home, Lio looked at me and said “I’m sorry for ruining your guys’ day.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I told him. “It’s fine.”

I looked over at him and for a split second, his sclera were pitch black while his pupils were white as a sheet, in contrast to our normal bright blue eyes. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things and when I opened them, Lio’s eyes were back to their normal shade. At this point, I was starting to think that maybe something was wrong with  _ me _ . Thankfully, I’d learn that that was far from the truth when we arrived home.

Moments before we were set to walk through the door, Lio looked at me and said “I’m sorry.”

“Lio, I already told you it’s fine-,” I said.

“No, not for that,” Lio said, “but for this.”

Before I knew what was happening, Lio sprayed me with the flower on his chest. Instead of water however, what came out was black goo that quickly covered my face.

“What the hell!?” I asked, dropping to my knees as the goo forced its way into my body through my eyes, mouth, and ears. I’m going to be honest, the sensation burned for a couple of seconds causing me to writhe around in agony. “What did you just do to me?”

“I’m sorry Linc,” Lio apologized again. “But I couldn’t just go on without sharing this beautiful gift with my brother. I know it burns right now, but trust me you’ll thank me soon enough.”

“What are you going on about?” I asked as I tried to resist the substance’s influence. I could feel myself slowly turning into a monster. And strangely enough, it felt good. 

Lio offered me a hand and helped me back up to my feet.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s not keep our sisters waiting…”

“I couldn’t agree more…” I said, flashing him a smirk.

We embraced each other in a hug before walking through the doors of our home, ready to join the others.

(So what happened next?)

Well, there was still the matter of infecting our remaining sisters in a fashion that wouldn’t make them suspicious. Sure, we could’ve just taken Lynn’s approach and held them down while we vomited on them, but that always leaves the possibility that one of them would escape. The plan we came up with was as sneaky as it was brilliant. Since contact with the black goo was all that was needed to infect someone, all we needed to do was touch up on a few of our sisters’ most prized possessions and let the dominoes fall into place.

(Speaking of, I’m still not over you ruining my tiara, Lynn!)

(Look on the bright side, if I hadn’t ruined it, you wouldn’t have got your sick powers…)

(I guess you have a point. Now whenever I go out, people can’t help but stop and stare at my beauty… literally.)

(Who was the first person you infected, Linc?)

If my memory serves me right, it was Leni who we got to first. She was the easiest to infect. All we really had to do was contaminate her sewing materials and she was converted almost right away. That allowed us to infect Lori without raising any suspicions with Leni being so oblivious that she unintentionally spread it to Lori. Lisa ended up being the hardest since she was the smartest and paid the most attention to detail. That’s not to say it was impossible, mind you.

(Well obvious. If it was impossible, we wouldn’t be having this mental conversation.)

Okay, no offense, but can you guys quit invading my head while I tell my story?

(Hey, just consider yourself lucky we don’t tell Ronnie about what’s going on in your subconscious.)

(Wait a second, Onee-chan, you can read thoughts?)

(Yeah.)

What? When did you learn to do that?

(I dunno, I just gained it out of the blue. For example, that old lady whose blood Lucy drank was a real piece of work. She was tricking kids into walking her across the street and then pickpocketing them of their wallets. Also, she was planning on killing her husband to collect the insurance money. Too bad Lana beat her to the punch. HAHAHA! Anyway, I hope you don’t  _ mind _ me snooping through your thoughts. HAHAHAHA! Get it?)

Anyway… getting back to the story, getting to Lisa required a little bit of trickery that made good use of her collection of old hip hop cassette mixtapes she had lying around. We just put a little black goo on the black film of the cassette and waited until Lisa went on a Jam session. That… took a little time.

(How long?)

About three weeks, during which time we’d succeeded in infecting the rest of our siblings. Even little Lily. In the end, it was all worth it. We became one big happy family again. 

(So then you decided to come to Great Lakes to infect me and Sid so we could join you?)

Not right away, that was Chris’ idea and he was infected shortly after we’d all been converted. Once we’d been converted however, we decided to have a little fun with our quirky little town…


	3. Prologue Part 3

**Festering Infestation**

“So how are you two taking with this so far?” Lincoln asked, taking a small pause to see if his two friends were understanding the events that unfolded. Sid looked intrigued by the start of this whole backstory while Ronnie-Anne was more on the thoughtful side of things, so that’s what they were infected with? Some sentient goop that forces people to jump literal species barrier into something they don’t even know exactly what it is.

“It’s so exciting Lincoln! You guys are pretty clever when it came to infecting the rest of your siblings.” Sid praised him as Lincoln scratched the back of head looking a little embarrassed at the compliment, “Uh, thanks, it was also due to the help of my infected siblings that we worked fast at converting the rest of them.” He stated simply.

“Well from the sound of things you had an easier time compared to when your friend tried to get Sid to infect me.” Ronnie-Anne mused, a hint of pride peppered in her voice, making Sid pout at the mention.

“You were awfully persistent at my attempts Ronnie, Chris even locked the windows and doors so you can’t escape, but credit where it’s due, when the chips are down you don’t give up.” Sid replied in a warm tone at the end.

“Yeah that sounds about right, it’s why I admire her honestly.” Lincoln admitted, looking at Ronnie-Anne with a small black blush on his face.

Ronnie-Anne returned the expression before she heard a sound next to her, she looked deadpanned at Sid who held a pillow to her face to muffle the squeeing she was commencing, they were so adorable with those little blushes and shy faces!

“Look, can we please get back to story-time? I’d rather not deal with this right now.” She practically begged Lincoln who blinked at the scene before him, she does have a point, this does need to be informed to them.

“Oh um, right, sorry.” He apologized as Sid seemed to calm down from her, er,  _ moment _ and looked at Lincoln with childlike curiosity, “Say you know, you guys infected all your siblings, so what happened when your parents found out the truth?” She questioned, from how he worded the story so far, it doesn’t seem like the parents were at home this whole time.

“Yeah, actually she has a point, Lincoln.” Ronnie-Anne concurred with her friend.

At that Lincoln looked sheepish, “I was about to get to that part guys, just hang tight and you’ll understand.” He implored them as they looked at each other and nodded for him to continue, sighing a little, he continued his little story…

  
  
  


So...as I was saying, it was three weeks until Lisa was infected, Finally and my siblings were together once more, maybe even closer since as we found out, we were all psychically connected, each of us could vaguely feel what the others are feeling, I guess this is what that twin magic I seen with Lana and Lola.

(“ _ Its kinda like that with me and Lols, but that was just more a sense of what the other was feeling, its vague but it works, this is just even more awesome! _ ”)

Yeah, something like that, if you focus hard enough you can actually talk to them mentally, it’s one of the few things that helped me from really losing it, my sisters and brother are all the family I have left, walking around anyways.

But on that note, we were currently having a sibling meeting in Lori’s room, it was a day off from school, mom and dad were at work just leaving us to our own devices, I have to say it was kind of difficult keeping up the fact that we were normal to say the least.

(“How so?”)

Well Ronnie-Anne, think of it as having a chocolate bar lying in front of you and you know you want to eat it, but you can’t despite your stomach wanting it so badly, it was terrible, At least appearance wise we were set on, might have to lie a bit on Lori spontaneously gaining an inch on puberty since she is young and still growing after all, just...faster.

Some makeup from Leni and Lola to account for our veins, and boom! Normal looking kids, but it was just nice to unwind from the pressure of maintaining our disguises, especially after some late-night feeding on people that barely anyone would miss.

Now a few days later, we were simply talking about things that were important to know and to do for when we spread our gift around to the country.

“Alright, sibling meeting is called to order, a very special one, of what we’ll do moving forward, anyone have any suggestions?” Lori stated, hitting the heel of her shoe on the podium, as she overlooked the expectant and excited looks on her sibling’s faces of what possibilities that awaited them.

Now all of us began to yell out random ideas that popped out of our heads, an incoherent mess honestly since we couldn’t even hear what was being said, fortunately Lori put a quick stop to it was a sharp, “Quiet! One at a time!” Now, at that, we calmed down but what do you want us to say? At the time the world was at our fingertips and all we had to do was just take it. Shows what we knew at the time.

Lola raised her hand first excitedly, Lori nodded and gestured for the pageant queen to speak up, “Oh I know! When we take over the country we should live in the White House, I always wanted to live a life of luxury at the top.” She proposed.

“The White House? That’s so far from Michigan, and isn’t that way far in the future?” Lana asked in a bored tone as Lola huffed at her twin’s lack of establishing initiative.

“Now Lana, while you’re right that’s literally far away, it would be nice to be in a seat of power eventually, but I can see your point, too soon to fantasize about where we’ll live after all is said and done.” Lori pointed out before Lisa raised her hand next, “Go ahead Lisa.”

The genius nodded as she started her pitch, “My suggestion would be for maximum consolidation of our numbers, simply put, when we go to school we should take the time to infect our classmates to bring upon a large uptick in our numbers and overwhelm the uninfected still remaining.” She explained before Luna interjected on that end.

“Well little sis, it sounds good and all on the music sheet, but that song when played will probably sound awful.” Luna pointed out, Lio and I nodded in agreement with our sister, it’s like what Luna said, it would be trivial to just put under the guise of selling tainted cookies for charity or whatever, but my brother did put it out there how bad this idea was as straightforward as possible.

“Hate to say Lisa but the plan kinda sucks so I’m with Luna.” Lio stated plainly, a small thoughtful frown on his face, “Oh? And what exactly do you two debaters have found wrong with the plan?” She questioned in an annoyed tone, her arms folded expectantly.

_ (“On the other hand Lincoln, Lio should’ve articulated his response to not be so heavy-handed.”) _

_ (“Aren’t you the one that wanted a house that spoke nothing but the truth Imoto?”) _

_ (“Yes and I distinctly recall that YOU along with others had to educate me on the importance of lying to avoid hurting other people’s feelings after the fact.”) _

She kinda got you there Lio, now anyways…

“Was that necessary Lio?” I asked him with a deadpan look, before I decided to address her issue in her scheme, “But he has a point, I played a game called Plague Inc Evolved, when I use my viruses in the game, you can’t just focus on spreading solely just to hit as many people as possible, you’ll get a lot short term but you’ll burn out the hosts quicker than you can infect them.” I explained to her, who knew that video games could help with taking over Royal Woods?   
  
(“Have to say Lame-o, you’re not wrong, Lio dragged me to your house when he saw my mutation to watch Dragonball Z so I can use it better and more creatively.”)

_ (“Yeah! It was so cool seeing you do all that stuff I’ve seen the Z-Fighters do!”) _

Ah but I also showed her Iron Man also, just to polish Ronnie-Anne up on her aerodynamics.

(“Alright you did, but you do realize that skateboarding also requires you knowing some aerodynamics too right?”)

Skateboarding and flying are two different things Ronnie-Anne, but we’re getting off track now. Lio added in saying nervously, “Not to mention if we go too quick in spreading the government might catch on, seal off Royal Woods, and owari da us back into the stone age with bombs!” He stated.

The other siblings muttered amongst themselves in fear of the likely event that we might be stopped, whether by being quarantined or bombed into oblivion if we made too many of ourselves too soon, which would be bad on that basis.

Fortunately Lori got their attention by slamming the shoe on the pedestal, “Quiet! This is why we are looking for ideas that  _ don't _ result in that happening.” She said to them, her face twisted into a scowl at the thought of her siblings being attacked in such a manner or treated like a plague, what they’re giving to these people, it’s a gift that should be accepted and welcomed with open arms.

“Okay, how about we like, tell people about how awesome and good it feels to be infected? I think small group talks would totes work for us.” Leni suggested with a hopeful expression on her face, everyone in the room looked at her in confusion and exasperation.

“Leni, either they think we’re literally crazy or run for the hills, this isn’t something you can just do a TedTalks about to a random group of people to jump the species barrier.” Lori lightly chastised her younger sister, pinching the bridge of her nose in slight disbelief at her idea.

Lynn spoke up in a joking manner, “Unless, like, you pitch the idea to our friends or something.”

That is when my eyes lit up in inspiration, and my brain or well, what counts as a brain at this point, started to turn, my siblings sensed my growing excitement as they looked to me in curiosity.

“What if we did? What if we did get our friends into this little group?” I began and got off from Leni’s bed to walk to the center of the room, “The heck you talking about Stincoln? You got that look in your eyes when you got something devious in mind.” Lynn stated with a raised eyebrow.

“Depends on how you take it, I was thinking about Lisa’s idea, it’s not particularly bad but it is short term returns, but your passing comment gave me something that we can work with, whose the one person you can count on outside of your family? Your friends of course, this is much more small scale, but it’ll keep us under the radar, nobody can trace it back to us.” I explained to them, a sly smile was quite evident on my face.

Luan adopted a thinking expression before she then said, “Actually...that’s not bad, it’s a  _ mindful _ middle ground for Lisa’s and I guess Leni’s.” Luan said in agreement to the plan.

Lynn smirked and jumped up to her feet, “Then what are we waiting for? Chris isn’t gonna infect himself you know, not gonna lie, it was kind of painful not hanging out more with him lately, just didn’t want to freak him out about what I am now.” She mused with a saddened expression.

She wasn’t alone in that sentiment, “Hai, its been torture without my fellow Lieutenant by my side, enjoying what we all have, and we could both kill that baka Flip together!” Lio commented as well.

This continued for a little while, the girls and Lio were discussing the possibilities of who to go about infecting, some wanted to infect their love interests, some wanted to infect a group of friends, it was nice to know how we came together to hash it out on who should be infected in terms of priority, truth be told, Lori is great at organizing and managing us with this plan in mind.

_ (“Aww, thanks Lincoln, but it was your idea after all, I just got it into proper order and ironed out the kinks.”) _

Heh, it’s no big deal, just sticking on the wall with what works, we did need to prioritize people we would most likely encounter, but before we did that, we needed to address the major elephant in the room…

Luna was delighted to find out that they can go and show off this new crazy thing they’re doing now to their friends, to have them join in the fun they’ll have with this rockin’ little town, oh to have Sam converted and making some real jams with her and the humans they’ll get to have some real entertainment with and everyone is soon going to know her name.

But as the thoughts of getting some real fame albeit twisted in a sense filled her head, the more Luna thought about a certain pair of very important someone’s that might get in the way of that, her joyful smile turning into a soured frown.

“Dudes, I just remembered, what are we going to do about mom and dad?” She asked them nervously, that got us real quiet pretty quickly.

And it’s for a good reason after all, unlike what those guys that pick and prod at my siblings like to think. We aren’t  _ just _ monsters, and that isn’t all that we are to claim to be, we did care for our parents and loved them so much, even after we changed our feelings for them haven’t changed in the least. 

(“Huh, reminds me kinda of when me and Sid were both infected, though she didn’t waste any time infecting her parents and sister, but I’m guessing you rather not take any chances?”)

We had to, as you can see shortly, and yes I can see the irony in that statement Sid I see you snorting over there, I’m just projecting the memories to your heads.

As I was about to say next, the reactions after we gained enough wit to speak are as you expected from us.

“Oh man, we almost forgot about mom and dad!” Lynn exclaimed in fear, as Lisa furrowed her eyebrows in thought, “Isn’t that something, we made our plans to spread this infectious gift to our friends and we have miscalculated one of the greatest obstacles, dealing with our parental units.” 

“Guys relax, you’re making this sound like a big deal, all we have to do is infect mom and dad and we’ll be literally one big happy family, we just got caught up in maintaining the disguise and secrecy till Lisa became infected is all.” Lori reassured her nervous younger siblings with a smile, honestly we were reacting a bit much, it was a clear cut case, we infect them, they see how we see things now, everyone wins right?

(“But based on the fact that the pods are your parents in the basement, your odds of converting them the old fashion way was thrown out the window?”)

Yeah…

(“Do you want a Wonder Hug Lincoln?”)

I wouldn’t mind it Sid if not for the fact that you’ll probably give away our location to those SCP guys, and your hugs are as painful as Leni’s.

_ (“That’s pretty true, she’s no gator wrestler like your’s truly, but she can break people’s spines pretty easy.”) _

Thanks for the input Lana, but can we make with less interruptions and more storytelling?

(“No promises there Lame-o, but I’ll try to keep my mouth shut.”)

(“Me too!”)

Alright, so as we were thinking about the bold move to convert our parents, we heard mom scream bloody murder suddenly from the kitchen, startling us and making us grow nervous/angry, it could be a number of things but the anger part was that someone might’ve been aggressing our mom and whoever it was just signed their death warrant.

The nervous part was if they eventually found out about our killings, that would make things much more difficult to deal with, we don’t want to hurt them from the bottom of our hearts, we just wanted to show them what they were missing out on.

“That’s mom!” Luna exclaimed as we rushed out of the room and down the stairs as we smelled the familiar scent, of a recently dead corpse, and freshly dug dirt, the former is what caused some of us to salivate slightly, mostly Lana, Lynn, Lucy and while she wouldn’t admit it, Lola to boot, it was kinda surprising when I found a disembodied arm that was chewed up underneath her bed, which there was a lot of air freshener around it, A for effort Lola, but the nose knows.

_ (“Hey!”) _

(“Did you just quote Wolverine?”)

_ (“Well we are the best at what we do heh heh.”) _

_ (“But what we do isn’t very nice?”) _

Yes, I quoted Wolverine, okay!? Get off my case. I'm trying to add some humor to this situation.

Anyways, current/past situation, looking pretty sketchy all things considered due to you know, random dug up corpse in the backyard.

“What the...what the hell is this Lynn!?” She asked her husband, rightfully frightened out of her mind, we peeked out to the side to see that our dad was hauling in the cadaver, we recognized it as that one late night jogger that Lana and Lucy had killed, the state of the body was not as we would say pleasant, after what they did to him anyways.

The man had a puncture wound in his neck, right arm was torn up to the elbow, some lacerations on his legs, his chest a gaping gash and bite marks everywhere, man the girls were extra thorough with this guy looking back now.

Lori glared at Lana who seemed a bit sheepish under such scrutiny,  _ “I literally said, don’t attract attention at this stage, and you let mom and dad become aware that there was something in the area.” _ She telepathically reminded her.

_ “She certainly made a “grave” mistake, HAHA! But seriously, why bury him in the backyard so poorly?” _ Luan chimed in, adding her accusative stare into the mix, before Lana retorted back with a now annoyed expression.

_ “I did make sure to bury it properly, deep enough that nobody can find out there was a body, sure a burglar could get a shovel but by then we’d find out, unless you count Charles’ neat digging and his rather good nose, nobody could’ve known...wait a second…”  _ Lana defended herself until she widened her eyes in realization as did the others, before we all facepalmed.

_ “In the end, it was the dog’s nose that revealed our new existence to this world.” _ Lucy mused, looking a little weary before I mentally shushed them, looking over at our distraught parents, despite what she’d like to think, there’s no way there was any correlation, I mean, do you assume automatically that a six and eight year old girl or any human for that matter is capable of such a brutal mauling with their bare hands?

(“Nobody?”)

Exactly Sid, which I told the others the same, as far as mom and dad know, they are dealing with some kind of animal like a bear, though Lynn put a stop to that line of logic quickly,  _ “Ehh, wrong Lincoln, I’m no zoologist like Lana over there, but even I know bears don’t live here, maybe in the national park nearby but not in the suburbs!”  _ She reminded me of that important fact.

“Kids! Come here!” We were taken out of their mental conversation by mom calling us over to the horrific sight, we know we had to act it out, like we’re still human, we all gasped and looked aghast and horrified.

“Holy shit!” Lori exclaimed, holding her head in disbelief while the twins held themselves for comfort and shook in fear, Lio looked like he was seconds away from puking dramatically all over our feet, which I quickly nudge him whispering, “Not all over my shoes.” While I telepathically stated,  _ “Don’t lay it too thick, you don’t even vomit normally anymore remember?”  _ To which he looked sheepishly at me and said,  _ “Sorry Onii-san, Luan’s acting classes really rubbed off on me.” _

Dad came into the kitchen from the backdoor, looking nervous and worried for our safety as Charles trailed behind him barking innocently, “Wonder what could it be that did this? Did some bear kill this guy? And when did we ever get a bear on Franklin Ave!?” Dad questioned the strange occurrence, he was just mowing the backyard lawn when he saw Charles going nuts on a specific spot near the tree, and then began to dig up the spot until the head popped up.

Charles walked up to Lana tilting his head at her hidden distress, the handyman reached out to pet the dog as she sighed, “You really are something boy.” She mused, I know that it was really meant for us, but the double meaning remained.

(“Say Lincoln, what happened to your pets? I saw them around quite a bit when I was here.”)

Oh? Well to be quite fair, I think Lana made them scatter when they got captured, she always got nervous about if we couldn’t be there to provide for them at some point. I can still feel them, they are in the town somewhere, after we rescue my siblings and friend we should go look for them.

(“Oh! I’ll take point in searching! I’ve gotten real good at my animal calls and how to track them too!”)   
  


That’s some enthusiasm, maybe you could come with us on the search for the pets, you and Lana really had some fun about your shared love of animals.

_ (“Sure was!”) _

But back on track, “I don’t know honey, it doesn’t look like a regular bear mauling or at least, what kind of bear buries their victims, in our backyard in particular?” Mom pointed out, we swore in our heads, that was a good point she made, bears don’t exactly bury their kills, unless you mean by buried in their stomachs.

“Dead body aside, we have a bear in the neighborhood? Maybe I can get Bear Wrestling under my belt next to Gator Wrestling!” Lana said excitedly before Lori interjected sharply, “Absolutely not! Wrestling gators is one thing but literally picking fights with a big mangy bear is another, so cool it Zangief.” She reprimanded the girl, though we all couldn’t help but inwardly chuckle at the idea because let’s be honest, a six year old as she is now manhandling full grown Grizzly Bear? That’s comedy gold!

_ (“I’ll say, you can call it “unbearably” perfect for some quality bear puns that time! Too bad we had to keep the game going for a little while longer, but you know, our parents can be real paranoid to bullshit.”) _

I’ll say this, we certainly have their knack for that sort of stuff, our mom looked us over in concern and a bit of...confusion, after all a literal mangled corpse is in front of your kids, you’d expect them to act more...afraid for our safety and the general shock of the situation, but you know how it is, when you aren’t exactly afraid your acting gets a little...flat, we aren’t exactly accomplished actors in the public arts, that would be Luan’s department.

Thankfully Lori stepped in for this situation, her face showing the mounting weariness of the sequence of events taking place, she wasn’t liking where this was going. “You guys go upstairs...you don’t need to see this and our younger siblings don’t need to see this longer than they have to.” She said as we looked at each other in concern because what she mentally told us was,  _ “We need to be mentally ready for what I think is about to happen, just be alert, and stay aware.” _

We could tell that she was absolutely serious, we know that look from the numerous times we would occasionally barge into her room unannounced, but with that in mind, we went up the stairs just as we could make out dad saying, “Rita to be on the safe side, we should call 911 to get the body and hopefully they’ll figure something out, I just can’t sleep at night knowing some dangerous animal or criminal is on the loose.”

That was the point we started to become concerned, we glanced down the staircase in fear. Fear of bringing unnecessary attention to ourselves and the police coming to investigate the residence. Considering the fact that we did a lot more than killing one measly person to sate our newfound hunger, it’s pretty bad if we let the police see this too soon.

“Oh no, dudes, mom and pops are gonna call the boys in blue.” Luna stated, her eyebrows furrowed in worry while Lily, whom was being carried by Luna, currently looked up at her big sister sensing her distress. She babbled a little and supportively placed her small hands on Luna’s cheeks, making her worries somewhat dampen a bit.

“Don’t worry guys, like all we have to do is just work our little magic and they’ll just join us right?” Leni innocently said and was about to go just do that when Luna grabbed her shoulder, gentle but firm, looking at her older sister in a serious manner.

“We are NOT doing that, if we had to resort to a copout just to get them on our side is wrong, they are our parents, and we never want them to fear or resent us.” Luna retorted to the sheer audacity of the idea. It’s one thing to convert some random idiot on the street but it’s another to take into account the conversion of those that brought you to this world, and I for one don’t want to take away the choice that we weren’t given, however liberating and pleasant it is.

(“Wow Lame-o, didn’t think you were that sentimental.”)

Yes, it’s just something that was unanimously agreed with me and my siblings, if we are infecting them, we do it with no regrets and no copouts.

“Although the sentiments are shared to make this as painless as possible, we should consider a Plan B in the event that our parental units do not wish to cooperate immediately.” Lisa brought up a good point, we were putting our bets  _ way _ too much into thinking our parents would hop aboard, especially when we sensed Lori’s growing apprehension.

“Maybe...we could send them away far from here, at least to spare them the kind of things we are going to do.” I spoke up in suggestion, the others didn’t seem too confident in my proposal.

“Um, Onii-san, where exactly are we going to send them?” Lio asked me pointedly, confusion all over his face as I looked at him not believing that he was not on board.

“Come on Lio, we just have to think a little on how far we can put them.” I replied back optimistically.

Lynn shook her head in negative as well, looking at me with a remorseful stare and said gingerly, “Lincoln, we’re not going to stop with just Royal Woods, you know that and I know that.”

I took a staggered step back, shaking my head in denial. I know it was childish at the time, but I what did you expect? I was trying to rationalize any idea that I could possibly save them if they weren’t joining, I didn’t want to contemplate hurting them or worse if we got angry at their possible resistance.

“B-but we could try, we  _ should _ try, we can do this guys, we can’t just kill them if they find out and refuse!” I retorted back to my sister, making her slightly exasperated by how hysterical I was acting.

“Woah woah woah! We aren’t killing our parents Lincoln, we haven’t gone full DIO and flat out rejected our humanity, I know that we are a bit...different now, but we got each other’s back to take on the world together.” Lio reassured me while I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder, I looked to see Luan giving me a gentle smile. I didn’t realize I had a few tears trailing down until she brushed one blackened tear from my cheek.

“It's okay Lincoln, you’re not the only one dealing with this dilemma. Nobody wants to let go of their parents, I can feel some of us just  _ leaking _ emotions and that’s not just a pun, it’s a fact that we all have to deal with eventually, we’re not going anywhere, we’re Louds and we stick together like glue or we all fall apart. And this connection in our heads will make sure we’re never alone, I know it hurts that there’s a chance you might not see them for a long time, but it shows that we care, that there’s a certain spice that can’t be forgotten. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t appreciate my little brother being sad, so chin up, look straight, and give us that winning smile eh Lincoln?” She finished with a bright smile on the prankster’s face as I wiped away whatever tears were left and nodded in understanding, a grateful smile was forming on my face.

Luan ruffled my hair affectionately, giggling a bit, Luna interrupted the moment with clearing her throat, an uncertain expression quite apparent, “Say dudes, I might have something in mind, something that’ll keep the ‘rents nice and close…” She considered before we looked to her in interest at what she’ll have to say, but before she went into detail, Lucy interjected, “If you don’t mind, I might have an idea for our parents if they refuse our gift, I got something in mind that could help in that manner.” Her sudden presence made us jump in fright.

“Jesus Luce!” Lynn exclaimed in shock at her little sister appearing near them, I’ll be honest Lucy I can  _ never _ get how you can sneak up on us like that and we’re a hive-mind and she still pulls it off!

_ (“And you never will, we all keep secrets as I’m sure you might know.”) _

(“Though ya think that’s weird? Luan’s girlfriend pops up in the weirdest of places!”)

Hey Maggie isn’t that bad with her habits, she’s just shy...and I think partially the reason she does it is she just enjoys jumpscaring us a lot. But she’s a really great listener to get things off your chest.

(“And here I thought Clyde was your only confidant?”)

Well if the shoe fits, I see no reason if she wants to help out in her own way, which does remind me at some point we should find out what our other friends are up to and how they’re dealing with the displacement.

But on that note, Lynn was fighting back the urge to reflexively backhand her sister, “Well since you’ve gotten our attention now, might as well hear what you got to say that can help with Luna’s plan B.” She commented in a dry tone holding her clenched fist, Lucy looked at her with an “Really?” expression before clearing her throat and then spoke her idea.

“I was thinking instead of simply locking them in the basement where we have to feed them every so often, we can encase them in a kind of pod to attach to the wall, that way they’ll be in limbo, and we don’t have to agonize over taking care of them.” She suggested to us.

I tapped my chin in thought and nodded in approval of it, “I like it, it's simple and to the point, but uh...how do we even do that? We just think of doing it and it happens?” I pondered on how exactly this is supposed to work, at this point the most we did was just infect each other, so the idea that we can also use this thing inside us to seal them in was something we weren’t sure about.

“Don’t know till we try bro, but good thinking lil’ sis, how’d ya come up with it?” Luna asked her curiously, Lucy looked to the side and quickly stated, “It was just something I...thought off the top of my head.”

We initially bought it at first but I looked at Lucy slightly confused at how cagey she was about where exactly it came from and it turns out, Lola wasn’t buying it either.

“Wait a minute, I remember that sort of plan from somewhere, it was from that show My Little Pony where Twilight Sparkle found her friends encased in some Pod that mean Queen Chrysalis put them in, but wait, how would you know that? You wouldn’t watch something that happy and bubbly.” Lola noted, narrowing her eyes in suspicion at Lucy who seemed to freeze up at the impromptu interrogation going on.

Lio was about to speak up when Lola shut him down, “And yes I know that it's not just that I was being general.”

“But wait, why do you watch it? I thought that kind of thing was too mushy?” I questioned Lola since she seemed to know a lot about My Little Pony.

“That’s _Princess_ _Pony_ which apparently you read Lincoln, still don’t know why you even bothered to read such nonsense.” Lola retorted back to me while some of my siblings couldn’t help but snicker about the “fact” that I was into that kind of book.

(“Well...are you?”)

What? No! I’m not about that kind of thing Ronnie-Anne, it was a lie to protect Lucy from my siblings’ constant teasing.

_ (“I’m still quite grateful for that Lincoln and I’ll always will.”) _

_ (“And it's literally in the past now, but it was real brave of you putting up with that.”) _

What can I say? You guys got me ready to handle any kind of teasing and ridicule, while that might sound a bit mean you know what I’m getting at.

“Really? This again? It was one time that I took up that book so what-” I was about to continue my false defense of “my book” when Lucy interrupted me, “Stop! Lincoln, you don’t have to do this anymore, this went on too long, that book wasn’t his, it was actually mine, I read Princess Pony.” Lucy admitted looking at her shoes in shame while everyone else gasped.

“Nani!? Lucy you read that stuff? I kinda expected you to burst into black flames touching anything girly.” Lio mused in disbelief.

“I wanted to take a short break from the darkness every now and again, it gets taxing maintaining this outlook without some overly sappy moment to balance it out.” She said to him.

“But then why let Lincoln take all the heat when you know the kind of ribbing we do to him?” Lynn questioned her little sister, her hands on her hips in expectation, she might be no stranger to regular messing around at her sibling’s expense, she doesn’t like it when it's not warranted or there’s no reason to do so.

Lucy rubbed at her right arm nervously, shaking slightly as she resisted the urge to flee from their judgemental stares, it was ironic that an eldritch abomination as she feared her own family, “I didn’t ask him, he did it of his own free will. Lincoln can handle the teasing, but I couldn’t, so he decided to take the blame for me, and got grounded for my mistake and missed out on his comic book signing. I’m sorry if I...went with the deceit, I’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit.” She explained to us, before she closed her eyes (not that we can see them mind you) waiting for the perceived mockery to begin.

What she expected to happen was the exact opposite of what she was really getting, “Lucy, did you really think we’d just do what we did to Lincoln to you?” Lynn asked her little sister, a bit hurt by the insinuation that she’d do such a thing.

Luna nodded in agreement with that statement, which started to ease my fears but then again, when have I ever doubted the family bond that got us this far even to the present?

“Lynn’s raised a good point Lucy, just because we did all that junk to Lincoln, doesn’t mean we would pull the same thing on ya.” Luna stated with a tender look on her face, “Though taping a unicorn horn onto my forehead when I slept  _ was _ a tad bit much even if it was clever.” I couldn’t help but admit, credit where it's due, they get pretty creative with their teasing.

“Come now Onii-san, you know we couldn’t say  _ neigh _ to that.” Lio joked, with us except Luan groaning at the pun he made.

“But you get the point right Lucy? Even though we might tease him from time to time about it, most of the time its at his expense, he got used to it, and well, the outside world isn’t exactly as lenient or as understanding as we are, we’d probably still make fun of you because that’s what family does, but we do it at a level we know you can take it.” Luan explained to her sister.

Safe to say that Lucy was quite dumbfounded, and a bit ashamed that she underestimated how the others would react to a secret like that, but then again, Lucy is rather self-conscious about herself. Including that she was bullied in school by some pompous brat.

(“Was it that asshole Chandler?”)

Pfft, I wished, at least Lio would get some additional satisfaction from jumping his ass, you know, he was actually laying out a plan to best get his vengeance on Chandler when the time was right, but he bumped into Luan and Maggie at the fair with some poor schmuck and we all know how those two tend to play with their food...

(“Good, I hoped he died like a little puta that he is, never liked him. Did you know he tried to corner you on the girlfriend market by trying to ask me out? Despite knowing we had a little thing going on.”)

Wait...he did  _ what _ ? Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have sped up Lio’s plan and make his death even more painful!

(“Aww how sweet of you to look out for your Ronron Linc!”)

(“S-shut it Sid! Anyways...as touching as it would be to have you mutilate him horribly and feast on his entrails, I didn’t tell you because this is generally beneath you, and I can handle some pendejo like him, and I did, namely with my favorite right hand.”)

Oh so that’s why you had detention that day, I tried asking but you always just smiled proudly and said, “Don’t worry about it Lame-o.” Guess I now know not to piss you off then.

(“Don’t worry, we’re cool, so my tolerance for bullshit is higher for you than him.”)

Noted, but if you were wondering it was some 5th Grader named Tyler. He thought it was funny to try and mess with her, mess with us, you know how our family treats this sort of thing.

(“You’re telling me. My family wouldn’t leave me alone when I was going out for a walk into the city, Uncle Carl tagged me with a tracking chip to figure out my location.”)

Really? Lisa did the same thing to my siblings, only that she implants them when we aren’t awake, hmm, actually for once her weird science habits might find a way to figure out where they might have taken my siblings and Chris.

_ (“For the record, my methods of conducting science is not “weird” and I suppose that this hindsight of tracking chips in our bodies could be used, after your storytelling I shall direct you to my room to get the tracker and begin the proper search.”) _

_ (“But wouldn’t these SCP guys know we have tracking chips already? Not like we can hide them.”) _

_ (“Actually Lynn, from their little poking and prodding at my body for anything that can help contain us better, not sure why me instead of Aniki, they don’t seem to be aware.”) _

(“Could it be whatever is inside us blocking the metal detectors that they could use?”)

Either that or they assumed that they were never had any recorded implants that were documented, if we’re working from that idea then the most they’d get is Luan’s braces, but yeah, Tyler was a dick, at first it was small things, like the stolen pencils, the shoving, the name calling, things that you usually see.

(“He was testing the waters, see what gets the most reaction out of her probably.”)

(“Wow Ronnie-Anne, those bully instincts you have are as sharp as ever.”)

Well some things you don’t really forget even if you move past that phase, some of the pranks that you say are _ important packages _ for example I can’t really forget, but it does have a certain charm to them.

_ (“Oh Lincoln how you wound me, you're practically saying your girlfriend’s pranks are funnier than mine? I’m shocked! I’m  _ **_wrapped_ ** _ up in guilt! HAHAHA! Get it?”) _

...Long story short, one day this douche decided that it’d be a great idea to rip up the poem that she worked hard on for an Show And Tell in her class that week, dumped garbage on her in the lunchroom  **and** slapped a note on her back calling her a “freak”. Gotta say it was a shock when she came home crying and ran into her room, now I’d like to think that I’m of a rational character and that my sisters and brother tend to break out the pitchforks and torches, but in this case Ronnie-Anne and Sid? I was  **pissed** .

When we found out after we got her to calm down and talk to us slowly, we were fuming, we had to also make sure Lynn wouldn't go on a manhunt after I figured out it was Tyler that was picking on Lucy after she gave us a description. Last thing we needed was her doing something she might regret.

("Do something she might regret? Who cares if she wanted to kill him? If he tried to pull some crap on you Lincoln I'd tear off his arms and beat him with them.")

That's all well and nice Ronnie-Anne, but considering we were human, we didn't want her to kill someone, obviously if we were as we are now, Lynn can do whatever she wants to him but if you want to know about what we did to Tyler, well, someone was checking into the hospital that day. His demise will come a little later which we might get to at some point during this story.

"Adding on to what our siblings are conveying, we all have our own little distractions when we grow weary of our fixations. I for one dabble into the world of West Coast Rap." Lisa admitted, Lucy was somewhat aware of that fact as we looked at each other and nodded in agreement, might as well share some of our hobbies too.

"Oh! I started to get a bit into carpentry since, like, Lana told me that the bed frame I made for Lori that one time was great, so she helped me improve on it." Leni explained while Lana gave her a supportive thumbs up.

Luna shyly scratched the back of her head before telling us, "I know I'm the music chick around here, but I kinda got a knack for coding, gotta know your way around the web before you can put up some killer tunes."

Luan was up next, "Normally I'm your go-to for some quick chuckles or a funny movie, but I gotta say its work to maintain this level of positive energy, so Maggie introduced me to the dark and horror side of things for when I want a break." She commented as we looked at her in slight surprise, but then again, we had noticed certain slasher films that were hidden in her room.

“I’ll be frank, Chris was the one that helped me get into non-sports games, heh, surprised Lincoln when he came in and saw me playing on his Switch.” Lynn mused with a sly smile, I looked unentertained from her mention.

“Oh right, how could I forget that after you’ve beaten my high score on some of the levels in Super Mario Maker 2.” I complained before shaking my head and looked at Lucy, at the very least she looked less frightened of us.

“The point is, we all have a little something that we tend to do on the side, even doing our favorite things get a little tiresome, if you want to get into something like Princess Pony-” I was saying before Lola curtly interrupted with a, “Still could’ve picked My Little Pony!” Making me gain an deadpan look for a second or two before continuing with a understanding expression, walking to Lucy and placing a supportive hand on her shoulder, “If you want to do something that you like, then who are we to judge is basically what we’re saying Luce, you can’t let fear control your actions, or people making you think less of yourself.” I finished explaining to her.

She looked up to me and asked with slight hesitance, “Even people like Tyler?” Lucy asked me as I could sense my siblings’ blood boiling at the mention of the bully, including my own, before I took a deep breath to calm myself down.

“ _ Especially _ people like Tyler, he’s beneath us, figuratively and now literally.” I stated while I heard slight crackling of electricity from Luna who cracked her neck in anger at remembering the bully, “Oh right, I remember that piss-stain, got a lot of nerve trying to pick on our lil’ sis, although…” She trailed off as Luna grinned malevolently and licked her lips, “I can always have room to fit him into my gut heh heh heh…” 

Lynn snorted and glared at Luna, retorting with, “As if! You’ll probably kill him too soon with your taser, I want to hear this asshole scream while I break every bone in his body nice and slow.” She said in a haughty manner, making Luna growl in annoyance and was about to get into Lynn’s face before Luan got in between them before their argument could be heard from downstairs.

“Guys, guys, we’re going about this the wrong way!” She began in a cheerful manner, before she clasped and rubbed her hands together, a red light emitting from below her as a slightly crazed expression broke out of her, making the rest of us a bit...nervous, “All we have to do is wipe every ounce of his family from existence, and show him such... **wondrous nightmares** .” She stated chuckling in such palpable sadism.

“Oh no, we are  _ not _ doing that, as tempting as it is, it's too soon, and we still need to see how infecting our friends would go.” I cut out that line of thought as a bunch of complaints came from my siblings, the temptation was strong to go with their revenge schemes, but we need a set of priorities to hold towards.

“Oh man.” Lana began, stomping her foot in disappointment and folding her arms, “I was about to say that I would’ve turned into a bear and mauled him to death.” She commented with a pout.

I was about to say something when we heard a scream and commotion coming from downstairs, we rushed down the staircase and based on the rising panic coming from Lori, it can’t be anything good for us…

  
  
  
  


To get a better idea of what happened that caused mom and dad to freak out, we had to do a little perspective change, while all that stuff going on upstairs was happening, Lori had to stay with them to maintain the role of an fretful daughter looking out for her younger brothers and sisters, in a sense it is true, she is concerned about us but maybe not in the way they were hoping for.

Mom had elected to call the police while Dad gets the video footage from the cameras from outside to go over anything he might’ve missed, because a buried body in the backyard and he missed any signs of disturbed earth? Yeah definitely need some footage just to be sure.

Lori looked at the cadaver in concern while she heard mom on the phone, “Yes, there’s a dead body buried in my backyard, of course we don’t know where it came from that’s why we’re asking you to come and investigate this! I just don’t want my kids to feel unsafe and on edge because of some wild animal or deranged criminal on the loose. Okay, I see, well as long as they get here.” She said to the person on the other side of the line.

Lori walked up to her as she hung up and sighed, “So what did they say about coming to investigate the body?” Lori asked Mom, who had adopted a wary expression on her face before she looked to her oldest daughter and said, “Well, they’re going to bring in a few police officers to investigate before they call in the forensics experts.” 

“A few? Like, what does that literally even mean? I don’t want the entire department breathing down our house, you know, just to make the others not freak out.” Lori questioned, with Mom raising an eyebrow in confusion, it does admittedly sound weird when you phrased it like that Lori.

_ (“Lincoln, I was literally nervous, cut me some slack.”) _

Dad came back in with the CD from the camera as he overheard a bit of their conversation, “Lori might be somewhat right on this, last thing we need is police sweeping the entire house for “thorough investigation”, I just hope this video footage of the backyard would make the point clear.” He said as the girl nodded in agreement.

It was basically taking a lot from Lori to just not freak out, there it was, the evidence to all the happenings that went on, I’ll have to say you two, we or rather  _ some of us  _ were a bit...overly excited about our new role in life.

(“Hmm, come to think of it, I did hear on news of some disappearances in Royal Woods in the past week at that time, mostly homeless people.”)

Yeah that was us Sid, or rather mostly Lana, Lucy, Lynn and/or Luan, apparently they couldn’t just hold in their newfound urges until our parents and friends were brought into the fold, so they snuck out at night to kill whoever was dumb enough to wander the streets at 3AM.

_ (“Shut it Stincoln! You try holding in your instincts to kill any uninfected nearby when there’s a few of us initially, plus there’s just the joy of tearing apart a stupid human with your bare hands, the sweet crunch when you bite into them...man I’m just watering right now for some prime human subs right about now!”) _

_ (“While Lynn is ready to  _ **_pig-out_ ** _ on some D-Class, she does have a point you know Onii-san.”) _

Ugh...I guess so. Maybe it's for the best. Last thing we needed early on is Luan to break under pressure and go stab up Mr.Grouse in broad daylight, a lot of things people will accept, an insane 14-year old covered in blood is  _ not _ one of them.

With that in mind, Dad went to the computer to load in the CD from the camera, in hindsight, we could’ve tampered with the footage but that would make things a bit suspicious about disappearance of footage, especially when there was news of people disappearing after dark, plus we never expected anyone to figure out our handiwork, until now.

“Okay, let's get to the bottom of this, Lisa upgraded the cameras too so we can get every detail of the outside, really should thank her again for that.” Dad said in good faith, at that time we were nervous about burglars coming in to rob us blind or worse, so Lisa decided to install top of the line security cameras so we can feel a bit safer, so would say that bit us in the ass later on, but then again we didn’t intend on getting infected.

“Try and go back to last night, that might give us some idea of what happened.” Mom requested while Lori shifted about nervously behind them, she was also sensing distress coming from upstairs as well, what on Earth were they even talking about up there? But her focus was snapped away when they went onto the video footage as the stress slowly got to the eldest Loud sibling even more so than before, it was fortunate that their focus was on the screen, otherwise they’d see her nervously twitching, and the darkening of her sclera…

The footage started from 12AM this morning, at first nothing of interest was going on in the backyard, all of us were in bed and the lights were off, at least that was how it initially was. Around 2AM was when the first vestiges of confusion came out, at that time our parents were asleep, since you know, can hear things better than a regular human. It was when the backdoor slowly creaked open and out came Lana and Lucy while a bored Lynn stood against the door, folding her arms.

“Alright, I’m sure you know the rules you two, 4 hours to get your fill of some delights this town got to offer, but remember, get the ones that are dumb enough to walk around at these hours on the back roads.” Lynn recited to them as the handywoman rolled her eyes in an irritated manner, they’re no strangers to this kind of business.

“Relax Lynn, it’ll be the same as last time.” Lana stated, brushing off her caution while Lucy had a thoughtful expression, “Of course, we’ll be back within the hour, there’s plenty of prey in those spots.” Lucy said to her, a small smile on her face, causing Lynn to smirk.

“Heh, well with enthusiasm like that, how can I be concerned?” She mused, laughing a little before she got on one knee and placed a gentle hand on their individual shoulders, Lynn’s smile was of a serene quality, one she saves just for her family and close friends, “Just try not to get seen on the street cameras, we don’t want to blow our cover, and I don’t want to lose you guys.” She expressed her caution to them as they nodded, there was nothing more to say.

Getting back to her two feet, Lynn nodded in confirmation for them to begin their little night out on the town, they simply walked out of the frame of the camera towards the front yard while Lynn glanced to the camera, thinking that maybe Lisa should try to mess with the footage  _ just _ in case something happens, but ah, not like they check out the cameras often so they don’t need to do it immediately.

(“Oh how life just pulls a curve-ball on you.”)

You’re telling me, not like I woke up this morning planning the downfall of humanity. Anyways, Lynn stretched her arms up with a relaxed smile and commented in a coy tone, “Well while I’m waiting for them to bring back some nice snacks, I guess I’ll go and trash Stincoln in Super Smash Bros.” And with that, she walked back inside whistling the Harlem Globetrotters theme, closing the door.

Watching the footage made Mom and Dad confused, and unsettled, what was their daughters up to last night? What did Lucy mean by “plenty of prey”? The way they carried themselves was unlike what they expected, they looked like they were...anticipating something.

“Wait, I don’t understand, why did Lucy and Lana head outside on their own? With Lynn Jr. not even going with them? Something feels wrong about this sweetie, but I’m sure what.” Mom said in concern as Dad felt a nervous sweat come over him, he has a feeling he’s not going to like the rest of this film. Truth be told, part of him wanted nothing more than to disregard the film, let the police handle the dead body for all he cares and destroy the CD, he loved us dearly and he couldn’t fathom the idea that we were linked to the murder, that he wished they were just sneaking out at night to do some crazy thing.

But the other part of him felt that he should watch it, to see it to the end at the very least, if nothing else it was commendable, Dad can’t exactly hold his liquor and tends to fold easily unless pushed, but we can see where we got our determination to see things through came from.

“Not too sure, but...we have to finish the video, just to make sure what really happens, no matter what Rita.” Dad told her gently, her worried expression evident but firm in believing in her husband’s judgement.

Though if they were to notice behind them however, Lori was missing from the spot she was standing in, but they were too engrossed in the footage to really notice, in her panic she knows that it's a matter of time before they went through the video, and find out what we really are, staring at the corpse she knows she has to dispose of it, get rid of the evidence...stow away our parents until they are willing to listen to our ambitions and our goals.

But Lori thought about the chance that the police would become suspicious about the sudden about face with the investigation, that would bring more trouble than necessary. As Lori pondered frantically about what to do, her stomach growled incessantly as she looked at it quizzically as she rubbed at it slowly, “Oh...right, I literally haven’t eaten breakfast yet since this all happened.” She considered, while we do like to eat humans, we still have the option to eat regular food, which is a Godsend, I don’t think I can ever go without Dad’s Lasagna.

(“You’re telling me Lame-o, my Abuela’s Tamales are to die for, at least we aren’t full on Tokyo Ghoul with this stuff.”)

Ugh, tell me about it, just human flesh and Coffee alone? No thank you.

Lori’s black eyes darted between the corpse and her parents as her newfound instincts implored her to devour them, satiating her hunger took priority over infection, but Lori knows she can’t do it, she can’t kill her Mom and Dad, and in a hunger-craze at that, she realized that she was positively  _ salivating _ , black drool dripped from her chin to the ground as her stomach or what counts for a stomach growled in hunger, now I’m sure you noticed this Ronnie-Anne and Sid, but we have a biological inclination, especially when we get hungry, to feed on the healthy, the more fit they are the better, but boy it was certainly taking its toll on Lori.

She wretched her hunger-filled gaze from her family towards the dead body, normally it wouldn’t be a problem to stave off the craving, but the stress of the situation, of what her parents would think of them. Lori knows she shouldn’t tamper with the “evidence”, but she was just  _ so hungry _ ...maybe they won’t notice much from it…

Unknowing of their daughter beginning to stress-eat the corpse, Mom and Dad continued to watch the video footage, electing to fast forward through the empty backyard, it wasn’t until an hour and a half later was that there was something going on, what they saw was staggeringly unbelievable.

Lumbering into view was some kind of bear-like creature the size of a car, or at least, the body was that of a bear. The main thing that stood out to them was the fact that it was covered in a mixture of blond fur and avian feathers, more so of the latter at the top of its back making it look larger than it is. With its snout a mix of a bird beak and a traditional bear, which was currently holding the dead person, the creature’s blue eyes darting about in passive awareness. But what really took the cake, was the fact that Lucy was riding on top of the creature.

“What the...what the hell is that? Where’s Lana and why is Lucy with it?” Mom questioned in disbelief of the bizarre but quite real situation, but that begs the question, Lana was here this morning and still is in fact, whatever plausible answer that Dad could come up with died down when he heard Lucy beginning to speak.

“I’m just saying, a Bird-Bear Chimera isn’t exactly the best animal combination to use, I would’ve preferred a combination of a Dog and a Reptile, you took too much time playing with your food.” She chastised it as the creature seemed to roll its eyes and dropped the corpse to the ground.

“Oh bite me Lucy, I wanted to have some fun since you wanted to try out your vampire-inspired tactics, though I won’t lie, his screaming was kinda funny on what you pulled on him..” It spoke out loud causing our parents to gasp in shock, that’s Lana’s voice they thought to themselves, and the writing was on the wall when they saw Lucy come off from her, holding her hat as she slowly transformed back.

The feathers, the fur, every besital feature receded back into the familiar shape of the six year old girl they knew.

“My hat if you please?” Lana asked her sister, gesturing for it with a slightly smug tone, Lucy scoffed and handed it to her.

She sighed in relief and put it on, fixing its positioning so it was perfect, “Right where it belongs.” Lana mused before the door opened to show Lynn walking out with an anticipationary look on her face.

“So you two are back, how was the hunting?” Lynn inquired, getting into a cross legged sitting position, placing her hands on her kneecaps leaning forward a little in anticipation. Lana smiled at her older sister, doing the same sitting down motion as did Lucy and said to her, “About as well as you expected, humans caught out in these late hours, apparently jogging through the park, making it extra easy for us to isolate him.” Lana began explaining to her.

Our parents were becoming more surprised about us and our new habits by the second, how we so casually talked about our latest murder victim like we’re talking about the weather, and unsettled, they definitely know whatever happened to their children, they’re not as they know them any longer.

(“Say Lincoln, how’d you know what your parents were going through, they aren’t really what I’d say, “On the team.” Yet.”)

Well Ronnie-Anne, don’t you remember? Lio and I can gain all the memories of those that we had a taste of to transform into them, even a few drops of blood can work just as well.

(“Wait so does that mean...?”)

Yes Sid...I can remember all the times they... _ ugh _ ... did that.

_ (“My eyes still kinda burn from that seeing that Onii-san.”) _

It’s alright Lio, mine too, best we can do is suppress that memory as hard as possible.

“So he was in the park? What did you do to get him to lower his guard? Some humans are pretty cautious about random kids wandering the street at night.” Lynn questioned, an entertained smile slowly growing on her face.

“Obviously we get Lucy to sit down in the middle of the path he was heading, then hunch over and shed some crocodile tears, poor sap couldn’t resist a crying kid.” Lana said with a chuckle while Lucy added on, “Nevermind the strange happenstance of a child simply in the middle of the night, with no supervision.” That made the two other sisters chuckle in amusement.

Lynn then looked towards the corpse with a skittish look as she then got up and stretched, “Well if you don’t mind me taking a fair share of the kill.” She started with a happy grin, walking to the corpse before being stopped by Lana.

“Not so fast buster, this is our meal, was thinking of stowing it away for tomorrow’s lunch.” Lana explained to the jock who looked a bit deflated, before she spoke up, “Oh come on, they’re best when they’re fresh, and no grungy dirt to get stuck between my teeth!” She complained, Lucy looked unmoved by her sister’s griping.

“Need I remind you that you leave behind scraps of your food and Lincoln has to then go find another lost soul?” Lucy questioned her, folding her arms waiting for an answer, Lynn rolled her eyes.

“Look I’m an athlete, a monstrous athlete but I still need a heck of a lot of protein,” Lynn angrily began but seeing as how they weren’t budging by her reasoning, she took a deep breath and clasped her hands together, and breathed out, “Okay, how about you give me a little share of the booty, and I’ll...give ya a bit of my next kill?” She haggled with them hopefully as they looked at each other for a moment and then Lana spoke up, “5% of the next ten you catch, for each of us.”

Lynn groaned but relented on that front, “Ugh, fine, guess it's the least I can do.” She considered as Lana nodded, and got up to walk to the body and you can imagine mom and dad’s surprise when six year old Lana who admittedly  _ did _ wrangle gators but does not have the ability as far as they know to do what she did.

Lana stepping on the elbow part of the right arm was expected, but they could almost feel the bones breaking as she pressed down onto the limb, the sickening snap and splintering of bones rattled their ears as Lana easily tore out half an arm as she then gained a playful look on her face.

“You want the treat girl? Do ya want it?” She asked Lynn excitedly as if she was a dog waiting patiently for her master, which she kinda was in this instance, as she got on all fours with a childlike whimsy in her eyes, looking intensely at the arm like it's a juicy steak as she panted in want of her treat.

_ (“Way to lay it on thick Stincoln.”) _

Not my memory Lynn, just showing what I got from you guys after all.

Seeing the sight of her sister getting antsy, Lana then tossed the arm into the air. Lynn intensely tracked the path of it and leapt into the air, like, several feet above the ground than any regular human should be able to, and caught the limb with her teeth.

Lynn landed on the ground as she shook the arm in her mouth like a toy before digging into the flesh with satisfaction, “Heh, I’m so telling the others about this.” Lana commented with an amused look as she pat her sister on the head, making Lynn blush a bit in embarrassment, letting go of the arm, “Uh, let's not mention this to them right?” She asked her half-joking, half-pleading.

“Won’t make any promises.” Lucy stated suddenly spooking them a little as they jumped in fright, “Sheesh Luce! You’re gonna give us a heart attack someday.” Lynn pointed out with a weary smile as Lucy smiled a little, “Perhaps, if our new bodies allow for that.” Lucy mused. Lynn waved off her little sister, “Pfft, you’d wish!” She said before they all shared a laugh about how stupid the idea was.

It was quite clear at this point that our parents had seen enough as they looked aghast and mortified beyond belief, Mom was barely holding back the need to vomit from when Lana tore off the guy’s arm, while Dad tried to hold strong, but it was ineffectual, his own kids, so casually talking about murder like they were talking about the weather, “O-oh..oh my God, the k-kids…” She could only mutter out about the circumstances, I don’t blame her honestly, none of us could.   
  
“Wait Rita...I haven’t heard Lori.” Dad pointed out as he checked behind him to notice that she was gone for a quite a while, they reasoned that she probably ran off to the bathroom to puke from the graphic scene, they were inclined to go upstairs if it wasn’t for the faint sounds coming from the kitchen, the sounds of something being chewed on…

(“Uh, Lincoln...your eyes are tearing up a little.”)

They are? Shit...sorry about that Ronnie-Anne.

(“Its cool, there’s nothing wrong with letting out how you feel.”)   
  
(“Yeah! Even tough guys gotta let out the water works sometimes!”)

Heh...thanks you two, but I did my fair share of crying when it did happen, we all made our choices, the best way to go about it our goal is that things happen, just make the best out of a bad situation.

Now, they were pretty apprehensive about the fact that their kids are basically cannibalistic, and apparently have superpowers for that matter, that might’ve been addressed at some point, so with a heavy gulp of fear, they moved cautiously, and nervously to the kitchen to find their daughter.

It took a lot of courage you know, for my parents to not outright just vomit at the scene of Lori ripping into the dead body with such hunger and need as she swallowed a chunk from his leg with flashes of her teeth now being as sharp as knives, the blood splatters coating the front of her shirt and her mouth, “L...L...Lori?” Mom asked her fearfully. The sudden sound of her parents made her freeze up and slowly turn her head to for them to see her changed eyes which swapped back to their usual colors upon seeing them.

“Mom...Dad...I-I can explain!” Lori began but then Mom couldn’t take it anymore, the dead body, the video, and now the full-blown proof that whatever happened to her children, are not as she remembers right in front of her very eyes, and so she started to scream in hysteria.

Before Dad could attempt to calm her down in the fear of startling their neighbors, Lori threw her hand out in a back swiping motion as a mysterious force seized them, coincidentally silencing Mom and pushed the two against the wall, the sudden shock of the situation made them struggle in vain, the rapid sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs did alerted them to us coming to check in on the noise we heard.

“Lori what the heck...happened…?” Lynn began asking but all the energy seemed to be drained out of her, as did the rest of us, when we saw just exactly what was happening. I had a faint feeling that something like this was due to go on at some point, just depending on what were these circumstances.

We were frozen like statues at the bewilderment of this scene until Luna was the first one to snap out of her trance as she looked urgently at Lori, “Dude put them down!” She shouted at her as Lori was a bit shocked from the sudden shouting but complied, “R-right…” Lori stated as she lowered them to the ground and lifted her psychic field off of them.

“What the hell Lori?! Why did you do that?” I questioned my older sister for what possible reason could she have for using her powers on them before she then said to us simply, “They saw the video on camera.” Our faces fell to varying degrees of shock and disbelief.

“Yare Yare Daze...but I thought Lisa was monitoring the footage and deleting them from last night?” Lio wondered in surprise as they all knew that when she was infected she started to take steps of getting rid of any camera activity of us from the cams.

“I was hoping to get onto that particular task  _ after _ they’ve left for their jobs, but it seems in light of recent  _ events _ …” Lisa began, glaring at Lana slightly who looked slightly guilty before my brotherly instincts kicked in as I glared at Lisa, “Knock it off.” I told her before gesturing to the elephant in the room.

Mom and Dad looked at us like they were about to be killed any moment, it was a feeling that made us a bit ashamed at how this confrontation had started but we were unfortunately the only ones that can explain this to them.

“Kids...what...what happened to you? No...what are you?” Dad tentatively demanded of us as we shared looks with each other, it was the moment of truth to see if we could truly convince our parents of what our new goals in life were.

“Well you see Dad-” I began before Lynn placed a hand on my shoulder and shook her head as she stepped closer to them, Lucy walked forward too, “Nah Linc, this ain’t your story to tell, you were just a part of something, if nothing else, me and Lucy should tell them since we started this whole thing.” She said to me.

Before she and Lucy then explained to them the events, the book Lucy found in the attic, the summoning of some creature that attacked Lynn to seemingly kill her, only to realize that it had “revived” her as well...not human, before she then infected Lucy, then Luan, who infected Lio in turn, which spiralled out of control and eventually everyone but our parents in this house was infected.

Throughout the explanation it looked like they were gonna vomit at certain points, especially when Lio had beaten a bully to the point of death, or the fact that the primary means of transmitting it is vomiting this fluid up into someone’s mouth.

(“I mean the whole beating the shit out of someone till they were bloodied and vomiting on victims would be something pretty nauseating to some people.”) 

Point taken, by the time the overwhelming horror of the situation had been explained to them. They looked at each other in concern as Lisa stepped in to provide the second question, “As for what we are now, I am not sure, but what we do know is that a majority of our internal organs have been disassembled and turned into an infectious fluid and any food we eat would be broken down as per normal but little waste would be generated. We also have developed numerous mutations that have made us...beyond human understanding. Even I don’t have any hard data on what we are fully capable of.” She explained to Mom and Dad.

By that point Mom looked at us with still nervous but concerned eyes, “But...this can be fixed right? Maybe Lisa can try and perform some te-” She began before she was interrupted by Lynn who had a confused expression, “Woah woah woah, you want us to get rid of this thing? It’s awesome and I never felt better in my life.” She defended the idea of keeping herself infected, Lio added on by saying, “Besides we kinda can’t turn back to normal once we become infected, it’s like getting infected by a werewolf, only more permanent, and since we have no actual organs anymore we might just die.” 

“So what are you kids saying? That we just have to grin and bear it, while my children go on killing sprees throughout the neighborhood?!” Dad demanded of us as we cringed a bit at the tone of voice before Lio spoke up to refute his view.

“Dad, we’re not murderers.” Lio said to him before Dad gestured wildly to the half-devoured corpse lying in the middle of the kitchen with an, “Are you serious?” look on his face.

“Ok, we’re not  _ just _ murderers.” He corrected himself and continued with an excited look, “We can be so much more, and with Lincoln’s plan we can turn this place into Heaven! Just the 14 of us.” Lio hopefully proposed to our parents, it was an honest wish, and it’d be the greatest thing we can ask for, with our family united we’d be unstoppable, unbreakable!

Until they started to break our hearts with what they said next.

“Kids...Heaven? What are you talking about?” Mom finally spoke up in a broken voice as Luna elaborated, “The whole “Heaven” thing is Lio’s anime biz, but what we’re really getting at is a World Tour that’ll bring us a banging fanbase and revolutionize  _ everything _ , all we had to do is just...do away with those posers up top.”

We nodded in agreement with that statement as Dad still looked unsure, whether he believed very little of what we were saying or trying to see what kind of catch to all of this. Credits where it's due you two, even if Dad is rather cowardly about...let’s give it about 50% of the time, he does take his role of a parent very seriously and looks out for us.

“And what exactly does that mean? Taking over the world? This...this is just crazy! How much of this is actually you and not just whatever scheme that... _ thing _ inside you all came up with? Are you even our kids?” He demanded of us as I looked hurt at his harsh questioning.

( _ “It is a rather interesting question however the means of asking, how much of us is really ourselves and we are following a new set of instincts or are we already dead and the symbiote is simply acting whatever its host originally was?” Lisa inquired through the link.)  _

(“Wow way to lay out the existential crisis Doc, next thing you’re telling me that we’re just a bunch of pixels on a screen by a studio.” Ronnie-Anne snarked at Lisa.)

( _ “Heh, yeah about that…” Luan was about to answer before Lori interrupted her.) _

( _ “Luan! Literally nobody wants to deal with that headache, Lincoln...continue.” She stated. _ )

Gladly, Lori straightened up and looked more incredulous than anything, “Dad how can you say that? We’re your kids, we love you both and we just want you to be with us, these random killings are just something that happens, people die everyday, but to just be monsters that lurk at night is literally impractical to change the world into paradise.” She said in a matter of fact tone.

Lola also added in her two cents to the conversation to sweeten the deal, “And just imagine it Daddy, when we’re done with all of this busywork, you’ll be the most renowned chef in the world with all that time and money put into it, and Mom everyone would line up to read your greatest novel! All you just have to do is drink that stuff.” She explained and gestured to Lynn walking to the cabinet to take out two cups, drooling out the infected fluid into them, filling them to the brim before she stopped and looked excited at her parents who looked more disgusted at the action than anything.

“Just chug it down real quick Mom and Dad, it’ll hurt like hell at first but then you’ll start to feel really good.” Lynn stated nonchalantly licking her lips of any residual fluid and offered them the cups, flashing them an encouraging smile as did the rest of us, nothing would’ve made us happier, but as you saw before, things just don’t work out as you intended it to be.

They looked at each other nervously, and then in wary resignation of what they felt they had to do, “We’re...sorry kids, but we can’t accept this, all of this, what kind of parents would we be if we allowed our children to commit genocidal atrocities against humanity? It isn’t right!” Dad refuted our claims.

“But Dad, that’s just how our band plays, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by who? The people up top? They can’t stop our opening act and we’re the future for these people and giving them real freedom for a change.” Luna said pleading slightly to him, while Lola got a bit impatient by their hesitance, “Also so what if a few people die in the process? You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs in the process, it's just how life works, though if they were smart they’d just give up.” She stated simply, Lana just looked pointedly at her, “Way to make it sound like we’re  _ aren’t _ psychopathic.” Lana sarcastically said to her twin.

“This can’t be what you want us to be a part of, what about your dreams? Your goals in life? Are you just going to throw that away?” Mom questioned us honestly, tears slowly forming in her eyes from the moment she started to realize that we did mean exactly what we said, and no amount of prodding will nudge us from that position.

“We still have those to think about too! It's just that, this is more important at the moment, we know it might be a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but we can make this work I know we can!” I pleaded to them, my voice cracking a bit as black tears slowly streamed down my face.

“Don’t do this you guys, don’t you love us?” Leni questioned them in a low soft tone, while Lily sniffled in sadness, she didn’t quite understand what was going on but she didn’t like the atmosphere at all, “We do, which is why we can’t allow you kids to bring the end to society as we know it, Rita, just run, alert someone,  _ anyone _ about what’s going on, I’ll try to hold them off.” Dad said in a resigned tone as Lynn dropped the cups in shock, shattering them before our parents as they rapidly got up, with Mom bolting for the front door and Dad trying to block us off.

This moment was too much for us, especially for Luna as we tried to beg them to reconsider, to give us a chance to explain ourselves, she grit her teeth in grief stricken anger as her eyes changed while tears flowed freely, she had just about enough of this, “ **STOP!** ” She shouted, a dual layered reverb added to her yell, instantly their movements halted at hearing her voice as their eyes dilated, signalling that she had lulled our parents into her trance.

Looking over to Lori who was given the plan B for what we had to do now that it was clear that they are against our plans, Lori nodded in agreement as Luna brushed a hand through her hair to try and calm herself down, “Luna?” She heard Lio call to her in concern looking like he had dealt with a roller coaster.

We all did.

She sighed haggardly, “Bloody hell mate, just have to get through this,  **go to sleep** .” Luna said slipping into an English accent due to her nerves getting to the rocker, our parents did as she had ordered, though Luan and Lynn was quick to catch them when they fell back and went into a deep slumber, Luan sniffled a bit in grief as she cracked a broken smile, “This is truly the best damn joke this Universe played us with, how embarrassing.” She mused as she brought Dad to the living room laying him next to Mom on the floor.

By now the rest of us had funneled into the living room. Lucy having receded into a corner and adopted the fetal position as Lynn was lying on the side of the couch, staring at the ceiling vacantly after putting Mom down on the floor while the twins hugged each other for mutual comfort, the others were in similar state of despair but the only ones that were somewhat stable state of mind was Lori and well, myself, I’d like to think that maybe its because the two of us are now the de facto sign of stability, we’d like to wallow in our guilt but  _ someone _ has to do something, the police are still coming and we can’t just wave off a dead body. 

Lori inspected their peaceful expressions on their slumbering forms as she shook her head slowly and looked towards Lio and I, “You two, I need your help with something important, we need a long term cover, in light of the fact that we need an Rita and Lynn Sr so that Child Protective Services don’t look at us funny…” She began as she got on one knee and placed a firm hand on our shoulders, looking at us evenly, “I need you to take some of their blood so we can cover our tracks, me and Luna will begin to encase them in the basement, if the police come, make sure they leave but do not kill them.” She requested us in a tired tone as she stood up fully, “And Lana,” She started as the mechanic looked up in a fatigued manner from her twin softly crying on her chest, still holding her tightly, “Next time, just eat your fucking food.” She said in a resigned manner, she didn’t mean to curse but she’s just stressed out by this situation, before stepping away to give them room.

“Well, I guess we should get started right Onii-san?” Lio asked me, looking to me for guidance in these trying times as I looked once more to our parents, “Just...small incisions, a few drops of their blood should work.” I told him to start doing, raising a finger to grow out my nail till it was sharp enough to cut through flesh easily, as I saw Lio do the same thing as we got on our knees, “Lincoln, I just hope when we get to the end of this, they’ll be here with us when we finally attain Heaven right?” Lio hopefully asked me, moving to where Dad was on the opposite side.

“I don’t know Lio, let’s...let’s just get this out of the way before we do anything else.” I said tiredly before I moved my hand towards where the least damage to their bodies could be done, namely the arms, I’m no Chris but I’d think they can live from a small stab in their arm. As I began to slowly stab my clawed finger into the arm of my Mom, she didn’t react much save for the slight grimace, seeing this made me reach out with my free hand to reassuringly pat her head before I drained enough of her blood, a pint really was needed just as Lio finished his part and we switched parents, if this was to work properly, there’d needed to be one of us on hand to act out our role as them.

(“So what if there was something like a parent-teacher meeting and they needed both of you?” Sid questioned Lincoln, snacking on a bag of chips while the two stared at her in a deadpan manner, making her sheepishly grin, “What? All this drama and suspense is making me hungry.” She defended.)

Well...that would just require Lio to shed some biomass and have them take the form of our parents, they act more or less the same, and after they perform their function, they just get reabsorbed.

Anyways, when the process was finished we felt an influx of memories, grabbing our foreheads with a wince, feeling every ounce of them as well as the more...unsavory memories that I’d prefer not to see, “Okay Onii-san, we’re  _ not  _ doing that again.” Lio stated with a nauseous as if he could read my mind, before Lori and Luna went to go pick up our sleeping parents, “Remember what I said Lincoln, if the police come knocking, make sure they leave, Luna and I will have to take care of Mom and Dad.” She instructed me, walking over to the basement door while Luna spared a glance at the rest of the room before she settled on her two brothers.

“Stay frosty dudes, we’ll be back in a few.” She regarded us before following after her sister, leaving us to our own devices so to speak, we had quite a lot on our minds since this all just happened.

“Well that didn’t go as good as I hoped...” I began with a sigh before Lynn sat up and glared at me slightly from my comment.

“Understatement of the century Stincoln! We blew that sales pitch like chumps!” She shouted at me in an annoyed tone, clicking her tongue irritably and looked off to the side, “Tch, so much for family sticking together.” She muttered, causing Leni who was currently sulking on the single chair to bristle indignantly at Lynn’s flippant comment.

“Don’t you dare say that! They loved us Lynn.” She retorted, I couldn’t blame her for standing up for our parents, she did always love us being together as a family, she even attempted to sabotage Lori’s College visit so she’d stay with us, I guess in a way she got what she wanted in the end though probably not how she imagined it.

(“I can get that, say Lori, what did happen to that whole Fairway Orientation?” Ronnie-Anne inquired from the oldest sibling.)

( _ “Didn’t get in, I guess they were scared off by their promising new student suddenly grow two whole feet, the fact that Luan piggybacked off of the event to advertise Funny Business were scaring the other students, you tried Luan but I don’t think your “Employees” could literally turn off the mental patient personality.” Lori stated while Luan chuckled in slight embarrassment. _ )

_ (“Heh heh...yeah…” She weakly responded.) _

(“I feel like that’s only half of the reason why she didn’t get accepted.” Sid whispered to Ronnie-Anne.)

_ (“I can hear you, and I guess you can say Lola mauling one of the faculty might’ve done that too yes.” Lori haughtily stated, they could almost feel her eyes rolling.) _

_ (“I couldn’t help it, that guy’s eyes were like crystals Lori! I just got carried away, they’d look so nice with the rest of them.” Lola huffed in annoyance.) _

Yeah Lola kinda blew it, not that we were even sure that Lori would even stay there for long if only to see if she can.

“Loved us enough to try and get us exposed! You saw how fast Mom tried to floor it and don’t even get me started with Dad on his point defense junk.” Lynn scathingly spat out as she looked off to the side with a disappointed expression, “Didn’t even bother to consider it…” She muttered.

Lisa took the time to interject on that end, “Unfortunately older sibling unit, what chances we had of convincing Mother and Father was about 5%, I didn’t want to inform you of that because I suppose the child side of me wanted to believe we can pull out such an breakthrough, how foolish I was, especially considering the video evidence of Lana incompetently handling the disposal of the body.” Lisa commented while Lana angrily stood up from where she was on the other side of the couch.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Lana demanded looking livid at what she was insinuating. Watching this go on for long enough I looked more annoyed than anything at what was going on, blaming people for honest mistakes? Give me a break...

Stepping into the middle of the irate bunch of siblings, I glanced around the place raising my hands in an attempt to calm them down, “Guys, getting mad at each other won’t solve anything, we just had a setback, but we can get through this.” I reminded them that it wasn’t the end of the world if they didn’t accept us.

“Sigh, what’s the point Lincoln? How could we coax our friends to join us in conquest if we couldn’t even appeal to our parents?” Lucy spoke up from her corner, gazing at me passively through her bangs, though even I can tell that she’s going through some turmoil.

“And besides just because you and Lio can assume their forms there’s a chance a slip up might happen and call the cops, I saw Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, so wake up and smell the roses Lincoln, it's over.” Lola added on in a slightly shaky voice, coming out of her bout of grief for a moment, though dried up black trails of her tears were evident.

“Ugh.” I groaned, throwing my hands up in irritation, but I guess it was a given of how everyone is so banged up about what Mom and Dad felt about us, it was a bitter pill to swallow, but we need to move on or else this guilt will cripple us badly, until Lynn made a passing comment seeing my inability to get their attention.

“So much for the “Master of Convincing”.” She snarked, I was about to retort back to her before I started to think to myself, wait, that must be it! Lio seemed to pick up on my contemplating expression since he raised an eyebrow, “I know that look Onii-san, what are you planning?” He questioned me.

“This speech, it's on short notice but I got a knack for doing that.” I said confidently before I called out the others, “I’m sorry that you guys are throwing yourselves pity parties because they saw only a  _ small _ part of what we really are, and what we can offer to this world.” I started to grab their attention, “What are you getting at Lincoln?” Lynn questioned, narrowing her eyes.

“What I’m getting at Lynn, is that we were all hit with the “judging a book by its cover” clause moments ago, don’t you see? We aren’t looking at things from their perspective, we might not think of ourselves as monsters but  _ they _ do, the video is their “proof”.” I explained to them, their faces turning from incredulous, to curious by my words.

“Let me phrase it to you in another way, let's say for example you had an encounter with a dog that was particularly aggressive that day, that nearly came to attack you, what image would that paint for you?” I elaborated on my point before Lana raised her hand and said, “Well that’d just mean they’re feeling cranky that day, some dogs are more aggressive due to genetics or a bad house.”

I shook my head, “Lana, not everyone is like you, but I’m talking about no context needed, just an aggressive animal coming at you.” I reiterated as she had a thoughtful expression, before Leni then answered the question, a bit unsure but a little focused.

“Then like, we’d be totes afraid of all dogs, we wouldn’t know any better.” That was the entire point of what I was getting at, I smiled appreciatively at my older sister at figuring it out.

“Exactly my point, they only saw the side of us from that video.” I said to them, Lisa’s eyes widening in realization as she then added on to my statement.

“By Pythagoras, how did I not realize this sooner? Of course it’d be easy to see why they’d be so resistant despite our efforts to reassure them that our plans only benefit civilization as a whole, they only perceive that we would be giving them sweet nothings at best, outright manipulation at worst.” She mused, looking downcasted for a moment before she had a hopeful expression.

“But perhaps that can change when we show them the fruits of our labor to our parental units when we are finished with our goal.” Lisa considered, rubbing her chin in thought as Lio smiled slightly at me in approval of handling this situation, our sisters were starting to get out of their funk.

“Way to go brother, never doubted you for a moment.” He praised while I chuckled a bit embarrassed by the compliment, “It's just the classic Lincoln Loud playbook, the Man with the Plan always can lend help in a pinch.” I said, smiling at my brother before Luan spoke up.

“Not to rain on your parade Linc, but what if this doesn’t work and our parents hate us for what we become?” She asked me, daring to hope that maybe this might work, but her doubts still linger on her mind, everyone did.

“They won’t hate us Luan, and we just have to keep trying to convince them that this is right, that we’re right for what we are making, a world where we can do whatever we want and answer to nobody, a world where everyone is happy and laughing, where you don’t have to be afraid of anybody, we’ll keep trying and fighting for our new world because you know why? The Louds never quit!” I declared to them determined, pumping a fist in the air as they cheered in agreement.

(“Wow Lame-o, didn’t think you were a motivational speaker.” Ronnie-Anne mused in pleasant surprise.)

Well, I did read up online and references from Chris for how to motivate people mostly because I thought it might come in handy, a-and plus to you know...encourage you to do your best at those Skating Tournaments.

(“Aww how sweet of you Lincoln, you sure do know to pick them Ronnie-Anne.” Sid said slyly as she nudged her best friend teasingly who blushed from the action, “C-can we just cut back to what was happening Lincoln?” Ronnie-Anne pleaded as she pushed Sid away.)

Oh...right, moving along, as we settled down from my speech we heard the doorbell ring as Lio eyed the door nervously and moved behind me for protection, “That must be the police, w-what do we do?” He asked out loud, his fear beginning to mount though not as sharply as before, though the comforting presence of his siblings did wonders to make sure he doesn’t freak out like before.

Luan adopted an eerily calm smile as she waltzed towards the door, pulling a kitchen knife from her pocket innocently hiding it behind her back. I narrowed my eyes in concern for what she might be pulling, “What are you doing?” I questioned her, “Yeah didn’t you hear Lori? We aren’t supposed to tip off the Police about  _ anything! _ ” Lana reminded her about 

“Oh don’t worry, I think it’ll be great for these pigs to start  _ squealing  _ for mercy, it’ll be quick and satisfying to work out my anger on them, by then they’d hardly remember anything.” She considered with a giggle as she started to reach for the door handle before a black chitinous tendril coiled around her hand which she followed the trail with a hint of annoyance to my outstretched arm, “Come on Lincoln, I just want to have some fun with these guys, maybe take a small bite out of crime…” She whined as I shook my head.

“Luan you have to control yourself, I know you have to be...creative with coping not hanging out with your girlfriend and boyfriend but this isn’t the right moment, it won’t be long, just trust me.” I said to her as Luan looked at me for a few more seconds before she sighed and gave up, moving away from the door as the tendril receded back to my arm.

“You got a plan for this Lincoln?” Lynn questioned me, while she would like to test her strength against something that can at least fight back, this isn’t the right place and time, I nodded as I began to lay out the plan.

Basically, the idea would be that Luan would lull them into a suggestion and give them what they want, the dead body, they’ll run their autopsies with nobody none the wiser. I’ll spare you the details of how that turned since it went about as well as expected.

With the body gone and the cops gone away it felt like it was a job well done, not at all noticing the missing parents, that now done, we can finally focus on the task at hand, our next move, not before we heard footsteps from the basement coming up, “Well I have to say bro, that was a smashing show you put on for the cops, heh, don’t worry about not killing those pigs though Luan, they’ll get theirs eventually.” Luna said as she stepped into the room, with Lori following behind, although Luna was trying to hide her misery behind a mask of bravado, though the pain of having to do the deed was the same as Lori’s.

We looked towards them with empathetic stares as Lio spoke up, “So it's done?” He asked her as Lori nodded, “Yeah, Mom and Dad are wrapped up in pods in the basement, felt like I literally vomited half a lung out.” She said holding her stomach with a grimace, looking over to see her siblings were looking at her in concern.

“But Lori, are  _ you _ alright?” Leni questioned her sister which she attempted to wave off with a smile which turned to a conflicted frown, “Leni I’m fine, maybe a little bit nauseous, and a bit depressed from having kick started these chain of events that made us literal orphans, I’m the worst aren’t I?” She mused, closing her eyes and sighing before she felt someone hug her tightly as she opened them up to see that it was Leni hugging her, whose black tears streamed down her face.

“Don’t  _ ever _ think that way about yourself Lori, you’re the best big sis anyone could ask for.” She said softly, she couldn’t bear her best friend and sister to talk so lowly about herself, she can’t just blame herself for something we all have fault in, but that’s why we got each other to rely on when we mess up so we can fix these problems together.

“Leni…” Lori muttered lowly as she was conflicted about returning the hug, feeling she didn’t deserve to be comforted, least of all by us, but I’d think you know us for this long that we wouldn’t take no for an answer Lori.

_ (“Hmm, I suppose so, and never regretted that quality Lincoln.” She stated warmly, making Lincoln smile along with his two companions.) _

“Lori, we’re all in this together, if we’re going to attain Heaven, then might as well shoulder the burden like a family.” Lio added in with a confident look.

“But...I…” She began but was silenced when we all decided to pile into the hug as well, which coincidentally we all kinda went in a bit too hard and ended up knocking ourselves over to the floor in a pile, “Okay might’ve gotten a bit too enthusiastic…” I mused as we looked at each other as Lily started to giggle happily from this moment, the first time actually since we had to deal with our parents, which made us smile and actually started to laugh in good fun, especially Lori since in this moment there was no worries troubling her, just her and her siblings.

“And I guess I can say Leni that you guys are literally the best siblings I could ask for.” She said gratefully, patting the back of her younger sister who giggled at the declaration, before we then shortly after disassembled the pile to sit in a circle, finally comfortable with our situation.

“Thanks guys, I really needed that.” Lori said in thanks, “No problem sis, we all gotta pitch in somehow.” Lynn considered with a gentle punch to her shoulder, on that we can all agree on wholeheartedly.

Lori snorted in amusement at that as she took a deep breath and sighed out as she adopted a more neutral expression on her face, looking like it's time to start looking at what we have to do next.

“So then, down to business, we still need to go to school, no amount of absence letters or doctors notes will not make the school board question what we’re doing out for so long, not to mention our friends will literally start walking up to our doorstep about what we’re doing.” She explained to us, Lisa nodding in agreement.

“Indeed, not to mention further absences would result in Truancy Officers visiting our home questioning our lack of presence, we were only fortunate that we had a lengthy break during our transformation.” Lisa stated.

“Which brings us to the next question of what are we going to do with Lily? She doesn’t have school to worry about and I can’t just hire a babysitter because they’ll probably get killed or maimed and infected, blowing our cover.” Lori reminded us about that little issue, Lola raised her hand with a scoff, “Why not just dump her into a daycare and be done with it? She’s a well-behaved baby.” She said like it was an obvious answer, I saw Lio was about to tell her the numerous issues that would come from that before Luna beated him to the punch.

“Are you nuts? That’s like putting a wolf in front of a herd of sheep! I ain’t putting faith in a baby’s self-control to not kill the other toddlers in the room, no offense Lily.” She refuted her sister, who huffed indignantly and looked away.

“Well I gotta say, that’d make them  _ howl _ with terror, hehehe, get it?” Luan joked as everyone sans Lio groaned at the pun before she continued, “But why not leave her with Leni? Have someone just mind-control the school board to cover for her.”

  
  


Lisa shook her head at that idea, “And risk people starting to ask a lot of questions about  _ why _ she is on leave? Tampering with her school records is more trouble than it's worth at such an early stage of our takeover of Royal Woods.” She said to Luan.

“Ugh, this would be much easier if we had more than just the 11 of us.” Lio complained, the others nodded begrudgingly, but I had a thoughtful expression, a slow smirk growing on my face, “That’s...not a bad idea actually, it's always good to have more hands on deck, so why not start with the friend that’s always been coming over?” I considered gesturing to Lynn who looked a bit surprised and flustered seeing the rest of her siblings staring at her expectantly.

“W-what? You want me to go and infect Chris after all the social distancing I had to do so he doesn’t find out about this? B-besides he’s probably mad that I blew him off for three weeks…” She refuted the unspoken question but we all know that is absolutely not in Chris’ character.

“Come on brah, you know he digs you like a lovesick puppy, all you gotta do is play it nice and cool, he’ll understand, and who knows, he might even like it.” Luna implored her, a knowing smile on her face as Lynn scoffed and pointed to me.

“Why don’t Stincoln just go and get Clyde or whatever?!” She attempted to deflect the question only for me to dryly answer her back, “Because, no offense to Clyde, he’s not exactly the best at handling stressful situations, not in Middle School so we can get a good read on whose good for being infected, speaking of which, I guess it's a good time as any to let Luan bring her boyfriend and girlfriend to the fold too.” I mused thoughtfully, with Luan perking up at the idea as Lio looked at me in a deadpan manner.

“Was it because you got tired of Lynn beating you up and down in Smash and Mario Kart, then wanting to play against someone else?” Lio questioned sarcastically, I returned his look with a slightly peeved face, “As a matter of fact,  _ yes _ .” I growled out in annoyance before calming down and adopting a coy expression.

“Come on Lynn, nothing wrong with just trying to talk to him.” I began, taking out my phone to shake for emphasis, “Unless the great Lynn Loud Jr is  _ scared  _ about having a conversation with her boyfriend.” I said, much to Lynn’s anger as she growled loudly at the jab as she bolted up to her feet, that certainly got her going.

“I ain’t scared of nothing! You just watch Stincoln. I'll sweet talk Chris so good that he’ll be coughing up rainbows!” She declared as she stomped over to the front door and out, grumbling to herself all the while.

“Huh, using reverse psychology, I’ll give you some points there Lincoln.” Lori admitted as he nodded before we also were brought to our attention, a distinct Luan-shaped cloud was left from where she was sitting, I sighed and shook my head, “Shouldn’t have put that thought in her head dude.” Luna mused with a chuckle, I should’ve known better since Luan is an entertainer and always “the More the merrier” kind of girl, if she found something nice to share with people, she  _ will _ do it.

Looking wearily towards Lio, I said to him with a heavy sigh, “You mind going and making sure she doesn’t do anything you know...insane?” I requested of him in exasperation.

  
  
  


Lynn was seated at a bench in the Royal Woods Park as she tapped a nervous finger against her knee, looking around for any sign of Chris. She couldn’t help but growl in annoyance at how she got roped up into this whole business of infecting her boyfriend, stupid Lincoln…

She pulled out her phone to check up on the messages that were left from her last chat with Chris:

Me: ...Hey.

Chris: Oh! Lynn! It's been a while lol, how’ve you been?

Me: Been doing good, just gotta talk to you about something important, like  _ really _ important.

Chris: Is it about why you and the rest of your family haven’t been really doing stuff during the break?

Me: Yeah, meet me at the park, I’ll tell ya what’s been going on, honest.

Chris: Oh...well alright then, see you there.

Lynn sighed as she put away her phone and looked up to the sky, man this is gonna be rough, what is she even supposed to say to him in the first place? “Hey Chris sorry that I’ve been ducking you for three weeks, would’ve hung out with you sooner but Lucy unleashed some symbiote thing that is currently inside my body, that’s a nice shirt by the way, so want to join the squad?” Ugh, as if that’ll ever work.

“Lynn?” She heard as her ears twitched slightly, turning to her left to see him, the boy that she turned her back on for a long time since she was affected by these out of world events, Chris.

He didn’t look upset at least, he actually looked pretty glad to see her which isn’t quite what she was expecting from him, “Uh...hey Chris, how’s it going? Why don’t you take a seat? Don’t want your legs to give out from walking over here.” She said nonchalantly patting the seat next to her though internally she was frightened as heck at how he’ll take the news.

(“Wait she’s just gonna tell him everything?” Sid questioned with a curious expression on her face.)

_ (“Course not Sugar Queen, ya gotta let them settle in first and then you give them the full scoop when they’re fully on your side.” Lynn informed her.) _

“Well I’m not wheezing for my life so it's not all bad.” He joked a little as he took Lynn up on her offer and took a seat, before he looked a bit nervous as he asked Lynn, “So um...you wanna talk about what happened on why you were avoiding me or…?” He trailed off before she straightened up and replied to him.

“Yeah...look I’m sorry that I ghosted you for about three weeks, it was really hard for me to do that, just some family stuff popped up and I didn’t want to get you all mopey about what happened to us, so I can totally understand if you were super mad at me for being so cage-y.” She explained to him, dejectedly looking away from him, but the response she was waiting for was not what she expected in her guilt-laden mind, though she had a feeling it was the case.

Chris sighed in relief and wiped away a sliver of sweat from his forehead, “Phew, that was close, I kinda thought I did something wrong to you the other day and  _ you _ were mad at me.” He told her as Lynn looked back at him in a mix of confusion and disbelief, “Huh? Why’d you think that? You did nothing wrong, if anything, you have like full license to snap at me for ducking you.” She retorted back at him.

“Heh, come on Lynn, you know me, I’d totally understand if you had some important family emergency to deal with, maybe a bit more of an actual phone call would’ve been nice, but it's fine.” He reassured her with a small chuckle, making Lynn groan in exasperation as she leaned back against the bench, “Uggghhhhh, jeez you’re so understanding Chris with this benefit of the doubt, at least you’re smart enough to not let those vultures in school try to take advantage of ya.” She snarked.

“Probably because you’ll rip them in half and break every bone in my body?” Chris mused with a teasing smile, making Lynn laugh at that comment, she’d totally do that by the way, especially considering how good we can heal.

“Yeah, maybe.” Lynn mused with a slight smile, her gut was telling her to spread this gift to him, but she wanted to catch up with Chris a little bit longer, she can at least give him that, “I was also a bit worried about you in light of recent news too.” He said, catching Lynn’s attention.

“Huh? What do you mean?” She questioned him, folding her arms in curiosity.

Chris raised an eyebrow in confusion, she doesn’t know? “Didn’t you hear the News? There’s some sort of Serial Killer on the loose in Royal Woods, killing people at night, it's pretty brutal honestly, but what I’m worried about the most is that these sightings are close to where you lived.” He said to her in concern, Lynn on the other hand was fighting the urge to snicker about what’s supposed to be a serious situation, though it carries a sense of irony because she’s responsible for some of these people dying in the first place.

“Oh right, well I guess I was so caught up with what went on with my family that I forgot about that, dodged a bullet right there.” She considered, scratching the back of her head.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chris asked her seeing her forlorn expression, before she sighed and shrugged, “It's just...something that happened a few hours ago, Mom and Dad are acting like sticks in the mud about a thing we’re trying to give to them.” Lynn said to Chris which he adopted a thinking expression.

“Was it something good?” He wondered curiously.

“Of course it's good, just they didn’t think so, my siblings do, we just wanted what’s best for them, I know its no big deal,” She began before shuddering, “ _ Losing _ , but...I don’t want them to think less of us or even hate us for what was given to us.” She said in a deflated tone.

“Lynn you know that’s not true, I'm sure your parents love you dearly, maybe it's just something that they don't understand, like they might think it's bad but they just haven’t considered the benefits to whatever it is you wanted to prove to them.” Chris proposed as she smiled gratefully at his attempts to make her feel better, even when he doesn’t get the full picture he’s just glad to help in whatever capacity.

“Yeah, you always know what to say to cheer me up Chris, like my own motivational speaker, you’ve always been there when I need help, even when I don’t even ask for it.” She said in a warm manner.

“You know I’ll always be by your side when you need me.” Chris said, placing a comforting hand on the jock’s shoulder, she winced slightly at the fact that she couldn’t be honest with him fully, but she couldn’t take the chance and get hurt again by someone she loves dearly.

  
  


“I do, you said that when we went to Disneyland for Christmas, but Chris…” She began as she hesitantly grabbed his shoulders as he was surprised greatly by the look of pain and grief in her eyes not to mention it was almost like she was holding onto him for dear life, “Just promise me, that no matter what happens to us or to those we love, that...y-you won’t leave me alone like Mom and Dad did.” She pleaded to him in a broken tone, gripping tightly from the memories of what happened recently came rushing back as the boy was overwhelmed by how raw the emotion she was displaying that he was unaware of what she let slipped accidentally.

“Lynn...I promise you...I’m not going anywhere, I’ll follow you to the ends of the Earth because you’re my Number One, and as your Blue Shell, I always go for First.” Chris affirmed to Lynn, rubbing her cheek affectionately as she sniffled a little and cracked a small smile, “Heh, that was so cheesy Chris...but thanks, I just wanted to hear that…” She remarked as they both closed their eyes, leaning in to kiss each other after being separated for so long, and with that assertion and certainty driving her onwards, she won’t let that be taken away from her.

Snaking her hand behind his head, Chris then felt a viscous fluid suddenly rush down his throat as his eyes snapped open in alarm as he tried to pull away from the kiss but Lynn’s grip was as uncompromising as the very bonds shared between these two lovebirds-

_ (“Hey!” Lynn yelled in a flustered tone.) _

-that he couldn’t get out of it, as his insides soon began to burn like lava was forced in there as his mind wasn’t able to bear the pain, I suppose it  _ is _ pretty painful, it's been so long since Lio infected me, Lisa proposed that it was due to the fact that all of our blood and internal organs are being converted rapidly at a cellular rate into the same infected fluid and changed.

The last thing Chris could see as he was mercifully let go out of the kiss was a serene, satisfied Lynn Loud lovingly gazing back at him before he blacked out from the pain, and started to change.

  
  
  


Luan was giddy, ecstatic, positively beaming with joy as she was sitting on top of a telephone pole. With nobody around where she was currently in, staring affectionately at a coin she was flipping idly, one side showing Maggie, the other side Benny, “Which one should I go visit first? I’m so excited by Linc’s idea, I couldn’t help but  _ flip _ out and go find my two favorite people, hmm…” She thought to herself, scratching her chin before a light bulb literally appeared over her head as she got an idea.

“Oh I know! This next coin flip will certainly get me some  _ tails _ anyways, so here goes.” She declared as she tossed up the coin into the air and slammed it down on top of her open palm. Removing her hand from the coin, she smiled as she couldn’t help but laugh, and so she did, so unrestricted, so free of having to keep her feelings stuffed down on interacting with those she loves, it was rather therapeutic actually.

After she calmed down, she affectionately thumbed the coin and put it in her pocket, ah, it’ll be so nice, so swell to meet her sweet Magpie once again, and when she gets Benny afterwards, it’ll be grand to have them by her side as they indulge in breaking down this unfunny world and give people what they truly want, raw and insane entertainment.

“Today, right here...right now~” She began to sing as she started to get up from her spot.

“I’ll love again~” Luan then started to float down with her skirt billowed out like an umbrella ala Mary Poppins, landing on the ground as she walked towards the person of her desire.

“I already found... _ someone~ _ ”

**Chapter End**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Short Story #1: A Sadistic Kat

[The following intel has been compiled from audio log transcripts, body cam footage, and witness accounts. For the sake of brevity, all accounts have been accurately transcribed with some names redacted for sake of privacy. In addition to the missing SCP-975-07, we now have reason to fear that another member of the SCP-975 class has a desire of freeing the prime captive family.]

Audio Log Transcript 1:

SCP Agent [REDACTED]- It was supposed to be a relatively simple mission. My team and I had been assigned to investigate the aftermath of the site of a chaotic attack. An attack orchestrated by the currently contained SCP designated as 975-09. Let me tell you, the scene was gruesome. I’ve never seen so many corpses in one place in my life. I feel so bad for the poor officers who were basically fed to her like cattle. I guess it's fitting how cartoony the scene was. One poor fed had his skull replaced with a muffler, giving his head the shape of said muffler and making him look like a classic cartoon character who had comically swallowed something absurd. Another officer had literally had his limbs stretched and twisted until he looked like a pretzel. And just when I thought I’d seen it all, I saw two officers who’d had their heads crushed by falling objects, one of them being a piano and the other being a safe. Then there was the officer who’d been caught in an explosion and had his face covered in black soot similar to an old time cartoon. Not that it was any less lethal than an ordinary explosion would’ve been.

A city bus was overturned and a couple of buildings had been toppled over like dominos. Not destroyed, mind you, toppled over, looking like a long line of leaning towers. Had it not been for the officers’ bodies, the scene would’ve been too comical to take seriously. I’d seen my fair share of freaky SCPs in my time as an agent, but the one responsible for this has to be one of the more freaky ones. Her abilities were so eccentric and mind bending; I guess they were fitting given her wacky, faux playful personality. By the time my team and I had arrived on the scene, she was long gone. Little did we know that we’d encounter another SCP that none of us had been expecting.

[End audio log transmission 1]

Bodycam Footage Transcript 1:

*The footage opens on the scene of SCP operatives assisting in cleaning up the chaotic aftermath of SCP-975-09’s attack. They are inspecting the many corpses present and doing their best to keep from being overwhelmed.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *from offscreen*: So what do you think was the last thing to go through these guys mind?

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *also offscreen*: For this fella over here, I’d say an industrial grade safe.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Haha, very funny, [REDACTED]. Could you try keeping the gallows humor to a minimum?

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: I’m just saying. I don’t think this guy had much time to think about anything. At least he probably didn’t feel a thing.

*There is a grunt from offscreen, followed by a “Whoa”.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED] (bodycam wearer): What’d you find?

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Come check this shit out.

*the bodycam shakes and the vision becomes blurry as the agent wearing the bodycam walks over to the other agent in question. The footage becomes steady again as the agent looks down as the safe is lifted off an officer’s head.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: I see what you mean by “Whoa”.

*Bodycam footage shows that the officer who got crushed by the safe has his head flat as a pancake. There is no blood or gore of any kind. The man’s head simply looks flat and 2-Dimensional.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Can we be sure that he’s dead? Maybe he’s completely fine and we just needed to get this safe off of him.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Nope. He’s dead as a doornail. Already checked his pulse twice, he’s way past gone.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: That’s a damn shame. I’m sure this guy had a family that’ll be devastated he’s gone.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: I’m not sure whether an open or closed casket funeral would be more appropriate. On the one hand, the guy’s head and body is still in tact, but on the other head, seeing this guy’s head look like a deflated balloon is kinda creepy looking. I think it’d give the kids nightmares.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Clearly it’ll be a closed casket funeral. There’d be no way to explain his condition without revealing the nature of what we’re up against. Remember, we’re trying to cover this kind of stuff up as much as possible.

*From offscreen, a young girl’s voice can be heard saying “Excuse me.” The footage becomes jerky again as the camera wearer turns to face the girl. Standing a few meters away is a girl who can’t be any older than 10 or 11 with long black hair and brown eyes, wearing a reddish orange blouse, red jacket, black and yellow polka dotted skirt, white knee socks and red shoes. She is too far away for the bodycam to pick up her facial expressions, but judging by her voice she sounds afraid. Not that it stops our professional agents from responding in the manner they were trained for.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *offscreen and raising his weapon*: Alright little girl, we don’t know who or what you are, but we’re going to need you to stand completely still and not make any moves.

Unknown Girl: But-

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: No buts. We apologize if our actions seem harsh, but we can’t afford to take any risks. For all we know, you could be one of them.

Unknown Girl: One of who?

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *to the agent*: We’re not supposed to be giving away details of any sort to civilians, least of all a child.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Relax. We can always wipe her memory later. If she’s even human.

Unknown Girl: Please, I need your help. I’m just looking for my friend.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Really? How can we believe you?

Unknown Girl: Please you’ve gotta believe me. I think he may be in trouble. *takes a step forward*

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: We told you not to make any sudden moves! *raises his weapon*

Unknown Girl: Wait, don’t shoot! I was just… just…

*The girl suddenly sneezes, startling the agent and causing him to open fire. He fires seven shots in total, all of them hitting the girl and knocking her to the ground.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED] (bodycam wearer): Shit, what the hell, [REDACTED]? Why’d you shoot her?

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: I-I thought she was going to make a move! I thought she was going to attack us!

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *approaching the girl’s body and checking her pulse*: Shit man, she’s bleeding red blood and she doesn’t have a pulse! No doubt about it, she was definitely human.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Please say sike right now. Don’t tell me I killed a little girl!

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *still checking the body*: I wish I could say that, but I’d be lying.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Damnit! I didn’t mean to, it was just a reflex.

SCP Operative [REDACTED] (bodycam wearer): Try not to beat yourself up over it. You were right to be cautious. The SCP responsible for this city attack looked like a human, but was anything but. There’s a real possibility that she could’ve been a member of their-

*The wearer is suddenly interrupted when a noise that can only be described as wet and squishy rings out in the air. The footage pans upwards to show the severed head of the agent who checked the girl’s body sailing through the air.*

SCP Operatives [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] (in unison): Holy shit…

*Unknown Girl laughs from offscreen*

*The footage then quickly turns and cuts to where the girl’s body lied as she slowly sits up. She then licks her left hand which is seemingly stained with blood*

Unknown Girl: You know, I was hoping that we could go about this the easy way. *chuckles* I guess that wasn’t meant to be… so now I’m going to have to force what I want out of you.

SCP Operative [REDACTED] (camera wearer): Open fire, open fucking fire!

*The sound of dozens of gunshots can be heard as the operatives riddle the girl with bullets, all of which have no effect. The girl simply laughs as she stands there unphased as the operatives continuing firing at her.*

Unknown Girl *after the agents run out of ammo*: Ahh, don’t tell me that’s all you’ve got. I was expecting more from the likes of you.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Don’t count us out just yet!

*The agent lobs a grenade at the girl, who simply swallows the explosive device. Aside from being briefly inflated from the resulting explosion, the girl shows little sign of being affected.*

Unknown Girl: Is it my turn now? Good. All I have to say is that winning’s not in your  _ cards _ !

*The girl throws a deck of cards at the operatives. The camera feed goes out, but screaming can still be heard, accompanied by more squishy and unsettling sound effects. The camera’s audio completely goes out shortly afterwards.*

[End Bodycam Footage Transcript 1]

Bodycam Footage Transcript 2

*The camera feed comes back to life a few hours later. The camera is pointed straight up, revealing stalactites hanging overhead. The camera’s wearer sits up and looks around, revealing his location to be in a cave.*

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: *moans as he regains consciousness and sits up* 

Unknown Girl: It’s about time you woke up.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: You little demon, where the hell have you brought me!?

Unknown Girl: I’ll be asking the questions here. Right now, take a few minutes to get your head straight. I want you to be fully focused when I start asking you questions.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: You’ve got some nerve making demands! What makes you think.

*The camera footage blurs for a few seconds as the agent lets out a pained hiss, indicating his effort in standing up. We can only assume he was trying to launch an attack on the girl in question*

Unknown Girl: *shakes her head* Yare yare dawa, you men in black wannabes really are rather dull. I wouldn’t put any weight on that leg if I were you.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: What did you do to me!?

Unknown Girl: Your legs aren’t broken if that’s what you’re wondering, but they won’t be able to support your weight for a while.

SCP Operative [REDACTED] *reaching down and pulling out a handgun*: I don’t know what sick shit you’re planning, but I won’t let you get away with-

Unknown Girl: *laughs* Put that toy away! I thought you would’ve got the hint that it won’t work on me. Especially after you and your team filled me with lead back there.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: My team! What happened to them!?

Unknown Girl: They’re in a much better place now. *smirks* If it’s any consolation, they didn’t suffer… much. Now, I feel I’ve answered enough of your questions, it’s time for you to answer mine.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: I’m not telling you- *screams*

Unknown Girl *holding 2 severed fingers in one hand and a bloody playing card in the other*: For your sake, I’d suggest you cooperate.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Why? It’s not like you’re going to let me live if I do.

Unknown Girl: Oh no, of course not. *laughs* You’re going to die regardless of your cooperation. The difference being that if you tell me what I want to know without causing strife, your death will be infinitely less painful and a hell of a lot quicker. Refuse to go along and… well, let’s just say that with my ability, I can make you feel kinds of pain you didn’t think was possible while keeping you alive for a very long time. And if you think I’m bluffing… *chuckles*, well I hope your valor is just as strong as your pain tolerance.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Nothing you do can make me talk.

*There is another scream, although this time there’s no indication of what the girl in the video did to him.*

Unknown Girl: You’re proving to be an annoyance. As much as I’d love to make you squirm and scream, I’d prefer to get the answers I seek as soon as possible.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Alright, alright! Ask your damn question! Fuck!

*The mysterious girl hands our operative a photograph*

Unknown Girl: I’m a busy girl so I’ll cut straight to the chase: Do you know where this family is being held?

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: N-No. I don’t know anything about them at all.

Unknown Girl: Lying is ill advised. Unless you want me to get physical again. I know you know more than you’re letting on. If you didn’t then you wouldn’t have been in the city where one of them attacked.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: So [REDACTED] was right all along. You really are with them! B-b-but how? The others are mostly made up of black ooze and they aren’t exactly capable of faking human functions such as breathing or even replicating a pulse! You actually bleed and have real organs, how?

Unknown Girl *whispering*: I’ll let you in on a little secret. I have complete control over every cell in my body. I can change my body’s biological makeup on the fly to suit any situation. Whether that means bleeding like a human or simulating a pulse or even changing my skin until it’s as tough as diamond. Let me tell you, it makes blending in a sitch. 

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: But why are you trying to free them? Why are you trying to help them escape?

Unknown Girl: I’m sure if you use your brains you can figure out why?

*There are 10 seconds of silence*

Unknown Girl: *sighs* Yare yare dawa, I guess I gave you too much credit. *points at a figure in the photo* You see this boy right here? The one in pink?

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Yeah, what about him?

Unknown Girl: He and I are  _ very _ close friends. In fact, he was the one who bestowed this gift upon me. I know that boy like the back of my hand and I know that right now, he’s probably scared and terrified while being locked up in your facility.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: So your goal is to bust him out?

Unknown Girl: Not just him, but his entire family. Like I said, he’s my best friend and I know him more than anyone. That means I’ve hung around his family a lot as well. They’re all such wonderful people and the fact that you’re unjustly holding them hostage makes me sick. *smiles a toothy grin, revealing razor sharp teeth* In fact, if I didn’t need you to tell me where they are, I’d have it in good mind to eat you here and now!

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: Go ahead and eat me, I don’t care! I’m not telling you where your friend is! He’ll just have to get used to his new home.

Unknown Girl *still smiling evilly*: In that case, I guess our fun can truly begin now… *reaches down and turns off the agent’s body camera, ending the transmission*

[End Bodycam Transcript 2]

Audio Log Transcript 2:

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- I’m not going to make it out of this alive. That much is a fact. Even if this girl were to for some reason change her mind about killing me and let me live, the injuries she inflicted on me would be too severe for me to survive more than a day. I still don’t know her name or anything about her, all I know is her powers. Turns out that her body modification ability doesn’t just apply to her own body, but rather anyone within her range. I don’t know how far her range extends, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say it’s a good 25 meters at least. It’s the reason I couldn’t even stand when she first brought me here, my bones were too soft to support my weight. I’d soon find out just what type of horrors she could unleash with her abilities.

The first thing she asked me was about the whereabouts of the SCP-975 family. I tried to play dumb, but she was having none of it. This monster in sheep’s clothing made her displeasure known by giving my left leg a light stomp. She barely put any effort into it, yet it broke my leg with ease. This wasn’t a showcase of her superstrength, but rather a demonstration of just how brittle she’d made my bones. The bone snapped in half like a twig as if it were made of graphite. Proving to be as sadistic as some of the other SCPs, she remarked, “Guess you don’t have a leg to stand on anymore.”

Unknown Girl- Ooh, are you telling the story of how I got you to talk. Don’t forget to mention the part when I stomped on your leg until the bone was shattered like glass.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- Did I mention this girl was a sadist who takes pride in the suffering she causes?

Unknown Girl- I wouldn’t call it sadism. After all, your organization is the one who started all of this.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- As if we had a choice other than locking those freaks up!

Unknown Girl- Yare yare dawa… you just don’t get it do you? This isn’t about you rejects trying to “save the world”! This is about you taking away someone I care about and I don’t know if you know this, but I don’t like people stealing what’s mine!

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- You won’t get away with this…

Unknown Girl- I already have. Thanks to your cooperation, I know exactly where to go from here. And man, I’m still surprised at how easy it was to break you.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- Fuck you.

Unknown Girl- Now, now, no need to be rude. After all, I’m letting you record your story for your little friends to find. Normally, I’d leave no witnesses and leave it so dead men tell no tales, but I’m in a good mood today. Wait, am I interrupting your progress? So sorry, please do go on.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- Despite her assertions that she’s in a good mood, I still don’t know why she’s letting me do this. If anything, it’ll just make it easier for us to stop her.

Unknown Girl (in the background)- Ha! You wish!

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- Picking up where I left off, the little sadist shattered my leg to pieces trying to get me to talk. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one of the most painful things I’ve experienced, but even that paled in comparison to the pain I would feel at her hands. She asked me a second time where the family was being held and once again I refused. That ticked her off even more, even if she hid her anger behind dissonantly deceptive smile.

She pulled out that deck of cards she’d used against my team and used it to slice into my wrist. I had been under the impression that her cards were razor sharp or made of metal. That wasn’t the case. These playing cards were made of simple paper and cardboard like any regular card. It was my flesh that had been modified, being softened to the point it was easier to cut through than warm butter. She took full advantage of that fact, cutting deep into my wrist down to the bone. She shot me a look as if asking me if I’d changed my tune and was willing to talk. I shot her a stone cold death glare in response. She’d already cut off two fingers and broken my leg. If this was the worst she could do, then this was going to be a cakewalk to endure. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

When I continued to display defiance, she sliced right through my wrist until my hand was hanging on by a thread. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was shedding tears from the sheer pain, but I held out as best I could. She shrugged and with one forceful tug, ripped my hand clean off. I shouted and cursed at the top of my lungs, writhing around and grasping at the stub where my hand had been. The girl mocked me, saying “Let’s give this man a hand” and mockingly clapping. She told me to wait right there as she left the cave. While she was gone, I tried crawling away, hoping that maybe I could escape. If it weren’t for my shattered leg, I’m sure that her effect would’ve wore off and I would’ve been able to make a run for it. I didn’t make it very far before the girl came back and kicked me over onto my back. I was thankful that she hadn’t broken my ribs as she did so.

Unknown Girl (in the background)- Oh, I think this is one of my favorite parts. Please go on and don’t be afraid to go into visceral detail of every second of it.

SCP Operative [REDACTED]: That girl. That fucking girl! She’s sick in the head, I tell you! The little bitch brought back a tiny little guppy, no bigger than a dime and then… then… then she placed one hand over my right eye and changed its composition so that it was more liquid than solid. Then she… she placed the guppy inside my eye and gave its normal makeup again. I could feel the little bugger swimming around inside my eye and the sensation drove me crazy. I wanted more than anything to just get it out, to make that feeling go away, it wasn’t even painful as much as it was irritating. It was just as much a psychological form of torment as it was a physical one. It got to the point where I tried ripping out my own eye to no avail just to gain myself a reprieve.

It got worse after that. The little guppy must’ve felt trapped being enclosed in the small space that was my eye, so it began trying to eat its way eye. Slowly but surely it began biting away at chunks of my eye, chewing through my cornea and iris all the way to my pupil. As the vision slowly started to fade from my eye, my eye slowly began filling with blood. It was at this point that I let out a scream, yelling at the top of my lungs as I rolled around on the ground. Again, I tried ripping out my eye, but the little bitch had strengthened the optic nerve keeping my eye inside my skull. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t spare myself the agony. And all the while, that little bitch watched with a smile. I didn’t know if she still wished to interrogate me or if she’d given up on that goal and was just doing this for her own amusement.

The guppy continued devouring my eye trying to find its way out. Once it finally did, my eye had been completely mangled and as to be expected, I’d lost all vision in it. My throat was sore from screaming so loud to the point where I was surprised my voice wasn’t completely shot. Although then again, that she-demon could’ve used her freaky powers to reinforce my vocal cords so they could hold out as long as she wanted. Finally the monster had some mercy on me and ripped out my afflicted eye. She asked me once again to tell me where the family was contained, this time asking me specifics such as which quarters their cells were located, how to open each one of them, all of that. I still refused and she grabbed another placing card. This one a 6 of hearts. She promised to give me a sheer heart attack before using the card to cut off my left ear.

She wasn’t done, not by a long shot. She left the cave again and returned with a handful of guppies. I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be good. She rendered my torso a gelatin like liquid and dropped the guppies into my chest. It didn’t take long before I could feel the little fishes swimming around inside my organs, a few of them nibbling around inside them. What started as another mere irritating sensation quickly turned into a fiery burning sensation as my organs were slowly eaten from the inside out. The pain I felt was almost enough to make me pass out, not that the she-demon would let me, slapping me hard across the face before I could lose consciousness. She waited a few more minutes and watched as I writhed and screamed from the agonizing pain before finally asking me what I knew. I couldn’t take anymore of her games and I told her everything she wanted to know.

Unknown Girl- And then some. Once I finally got you to talk, I couldn’t get you to shut up. Although I will say that I’m quite thankful you shared such secrets with me, you were quite useful. 

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- Like I said, I don’t think I’m going to make it out of this alive. The guppies are still inside me and are eating away at my organs. I think a few of them have chewed through my intestines and some are eating at my stomach. I’m pretty sure I can feel myself internally bleeding out.

Unknown Girl- Don’t worry, as much as I’d love to leave you here to slowly bleed to death in what would surely be an agonizing fate, I know better than to take the chance of you surviving. Therefore…

SCP Operative [REDACTED]- Holy shit! What the fuck!? OH GOD NO-

*The audio recording becomes filled with a series of blood curdling screams and the disturbing sound of squelching and crunching followed by a low-pitched gurgling. The disturbing audio lasts for a good 20 seconds before finally coming to an end before cutting out.*

[The body of SCP Operative [REDACTED] still has yet to be recovered. We have reason to believe that they were completely devoured and if not, were otherwise killed. The operative’s body cam and audio recorder were recovered from a small cave located in [REDACTED]. Thanks to bodycam footage, we have a clear image of the girl in question. We are currently working to identify who the girl is and what kind of danger she poses.]

Meanwhile, on a hill overlooking a small town, the girl in question is standing in the pale moonlight, thinking about her next course of action. She smiles as she recalls the fate that befell the poor agent she kidnapped and interrogated. While he had been stubborn, at last she was able to break him down and get him to talk. Now she knew exactly where the Louds were being held. Where her friend was being held. Pulling out her phone, Kat took a moment to look at a photo of her and Lio dressed as Seras Victoria and Alucard respectively for a cosplay. She smiled fondly at the memory, making a vow to her friend.

“I know you’re probably terrified right now wherever you are,” She said. “But I’m not going to let you or your siblings rot in there for long. I promise I’m going to get you out of there… by any means necessary.” Her smile grew even wider and took on a more sinister tinge. “Like I told that fool, I don’t let people take what’s mine and I’ll rip them limb from limb if I have to. Just hang tight, I’m coming.”

Kat looked down on the city and wondered whether or not she should spread her “gift” to its citizens as well. She decided against it, not wanting to indulge in unnecessary bloodshed. If she did decide to satisfy her newfound bloodlust, it could wait until after Lio was out of his prison. She knew that the SCP had likely found what was left of the agent she devoured and delighted in the fact she had a surprise for them on the man’s equipment in the form of tiny microscopic spores and skin cells that contaminated anyone who came in contact with it. The fact that she could control every cell in her body, even when they were separated from her proved to be more devastating than it sounded. Not only did it expand her reach, it meant that anyone who came in proximity with them became vulnerable to her bio manipulation.

Kat couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of those poor scientists suddenly being confused as to why they were seemingly melting. Why their flesh became so sensitive that mere light caused it to blister, burn, and peel from the bone. Why their bones became so brittle that their legs snapped in half when they were doing nothing but standing. That was sure to cause a little chaos. If she was lucky, maybe it’d even stir up paranoia amongst the organization that one of them was an SCP and turn them against each other. Oh, the trouble she could cause from so far away. And if those Guys in White knockoffs thought that was bad, they’d be in for a treat whenever she decided to make her move. She was going to need some help on that end however and who better to go to than Lio’s brother, The Man With A Plan. It was simply a matter of finding him so they could formulate a plan.

“Tick tock,” Kat thought to herself as she disappeared into the night.


	5. Short Story #2: Fair Play

Chandler McCann wasn’t the introspective type. He knew how to read other people’s feelings and how to toy with them to get what he wanted, but he rarely took the time to look within and find out what exactly was it that he wanted. The world was going by too fast for something that. But one day, while squatting on a sobbing third grader’s back and demanding his money, Chandler realized just how boring his life had become.

_ Seriously,  _ he thought.  _ Every day I just wake up, brush my teeth, go to school, mess around with these little shits, and then go home and hang out on my phone until bed. Where’s the fun in that? I need something new. _

The kid underneath him was crying too hard for Chandler to figure out what that “something new” should be. Growling, he stood up and grabbed the front of the little boy’s shirt. With his teeth bared like an angry chimp, he slammed the child against the wall. “Stop fucking crying,” he snarled. He stuffed his hand into the boy’s pocket and retrieved a crisp green dollar bill from it. The face of Andrew Jackson greeted him, along with that sweet number 20. 

_ Such a perfect number _ , Chandler thought as he tossed the younger boy to the side and started walking away with his prize. He jammed the money into his pocket and thought about all the things he could do with it. Something new and exciting was what he wanted, and a twenty should be able to cover that. 

_ How about a movie night with the boys? I could grab some snacks with this money. The really expensive kinds too.  _

He dwelt on that idea for a few seconds, then shook his head. Expensive snacks were rarely worth it. They were either mediocre European chocolates that were overproduced because “muh fancy” or giant bags of chips with flavors that should never have existed. 

Still, the idea of calling up a friend wasn’t bad. Chandler whipped out his phone and scrolled through a list of contacts until he found who he was looking for. He tapped the name, pressed the phone to his cheek, and waited for an answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Trent. It’s me, Chandler,” Chandler said.

“I know who this is, I have caller ID. Everyone does these days.”

“Whatever. You wanna hit up the town with your boy later tonight?”

“I don’t know… I got a test tomorrow. It’s history.”

Chandler hissed; history was Trent’s worst class. As far as that boy was concerned, Genghis Khan and the dinosaurs both existed in the same decade. Still, that didn’t mean Trent had to stay in and study. Chandler knew he had a bad attention span, and he would welcome any chance to set studying aside.

“Come on, dude. Hey, history’s your last block, right? You can just study in science class. Teacher’s out anyway, and the substitute does  _ not _ give a fuck.”

Chandler heard Trent hum the hum of hesitation, but ultimately he gave in. “Alright, fine,” he said. “I have wanted to go to the fair going on tonight.”

“There’s a fair?”

“Oh yeah. They got everything. Games, rides, cotton candy… all the good stuff.”

Now it was Chandler’s turn to hum and think it out. On one hand, going to a fair with another guy could be seen as gay. On the other hand… cotton candy~

“We’ll meet up at sunset,” declared Chandler. He glanced at the twenty in his hand and said, “Oh, and bring some money. I didn’t get my allowance this week.”

“Seriously?” Trent audibly groaned into the phone. “Fine. I’ll bring enough for both of us. Talk to you later. Bye.”

The call ended, and Chandler put his phone and money in his pocket. He grinned as he kept walking along the sidewalk. 

_ Man, it’s good to have rich friends. _

  
  


* * *

  
  


Spoiler: Trent wasn’t rich. He had  _ enough _ for him and Chandler to have some fun, but while he was enjoying the hell out of himself, his redheaded friend wasn’t. Chandler felt a strange malaise the whole time; like something was off. He eventually explained it away as him being bored with the attractions. Roller coasters were cool and all, but he had been on them before. He needed something new; something to really spice up his life.

He found exactly what he was looking for when his eye rolled across the crowd and found two girls standing by the wall. An enthusiastic grin stretched on his face.

“Hey Trent,” he said, slapping his friend’s arm, “girls at two o’clock.”

Trent looked over, and his eyes widened. The two girls he saw could only be described as hot cuties or cute hotties. One of them was a brunette, with her hair tied in a long ponytail. She had a killer smile, too, and judging from how hard she was laughing, her friend must’ve said something really funny to her. 

Not like the other girl looked like the funny type. The other girl, who was slightly shorter but  _ much _ more stacked (chest-wise), had a grim expression on her face that was about as dark as her hair or her clothes. Observing further, Trent figured that the two were friends, and that Brunette was trying to get her to laugh, but only succeeded in amusing herself.

Chandler eyed them both with lustful hunger.

“Chandler, you’re not seriously, right?” Trent asked. “Look at them. You really think we can score with high school girls?”

Chandler thought about it for a moment. “They could be in middle school,” he said.

“So?”

“We could pretend like we’re in middle school.”

“We  _ could _ … but  _ should _ we?”

Chandler didn’t even hesitate. “Yes, we should.” With that bold declaration, he sauntered over to the two girls, Trent trailing after him.

“Hello, ladies,” said Chandler loudly, cutting across Brunette’s laughter. They both observed the two boys pulling up closer. Chandler flashed them a cocky grin, then said, “My name’s Chandler McCann. You might’ve heard of me… I’m the guy that throws those raging parties everyone’s always talking about. And this here is my buddy Trent. Aaaaaaaand… tonight is your lucky night, because you get to spend it with us.”

The emo didn’t seem too pleased with his proposition. Her friend, on the other hand, was clearly amused. “That so?”

Chandler nodded, and she burst out laughing. “Check out the balls on this one, Maggie,” she said, nudging her friend’s arm with her elbow. 

“I’d rather not,” Maggie responded chillingly.

“Oh, lighten up, sourpuss.” The girl looked back to Chandler and Trent, a strange sparkle in her eye. It was like amusement, but a little more… dangerous. Trent couldn’t put it into words, but he felt unnerved. He glanced back to Chandler to see if he noticed, but if the cocky kid did notice, he clearly didn’t care.

“Name’s Luan,” she said. She pointed at her friend and said, “And that’s Maggie. She didn’t want to come with me here, but I told her that wasn’t  _ fair,  _ because I used to go with her to all her book signings. It was a real  _ roller-coaster _ of emotions to get her here. Ha ha, geddit?”

Chandler chuckled weakly out of politeness. Trent just smiled.

“So, uh, what do you like doing here?” Trent asked.

“Nothing,” said Maggie.

“Well,  _ I _ like the games. Especially the ones with the clowns. Oh, and there’s another thing I like; the boys here.”

“Boys? So you like having fun with boys?”

Luan’s eyes flickered. “In a way, yes.”

Chandler looked excitedly at Trent, but his friend didn’t share his enthusiasm. He still felt uncomfortable and uneasy. These two girls… there was something off about them. Something… unnatural. 

_ Get it together, man,  _ he told himself.  _ You’re just being stupid. _

Luan, as she sensed his unease, swooped in near his face. Trent flinched and fell back, and Luan started laughing again. Even Maggie cracked a smile. “Ease up, kid, I’m not going to eat you,” she said. “You’d get stuck in my braces, for one. But if you’re really such a scaredy cat-”

“I’m not!”

“Oh? Well then you shouldn’t mind if we play a game in the Hall of Mirrors, right?”

“A game?”

Luan nodded. “I’ll explain to you on the way.”

  
  
  
  


The game that Luan proposed was simple: she and Maggie would go inside first, and find themselves a place to hide. Chandler and Trent would come in afterwards, and they’d have to make it to the exit without being spooked by them. Luan also recommended that they split up, so they could increase their chances of winning. Trent was hesitant to agree to such a game, but Chandler accepted the terms, with one condition.

“If either of us win, you both have to kiss us.”

Maggie looked disgusted, but Luan didn’t mind at all. “Deal! But I’ll warn you now… what me and Maggie are going to cook up… well, we can be pretty scary. We might end up sending you to an early grave.”

“I’ll risk it,” Chandler boldly stated. 

“Good to hear. Good luck.”

That was the last thing Luan said before she and Maggie slipped inside. The door slammed shut behind them. The two boys waited for a few minutes, then opened the door and went inside. The ominous mouth of a clown hung above the door, and Trent couldn’t help but feel that going inside the Hall of Mirrors was… well, like being eaten by that mouth.

“Alright, let’s split up,” said Chandler. He surveyed his surroundings, his eyes scanning past rows and rows of reflections. The lighting was dark in the room; blood-red lights were all that helped them see. Through the darkness, he could see two paths that lead off to the left and the right. He tapped Trent’s arm and directed him down the left path, while he turned to the right.

_ The right path… the one named after not being wrong… _

Into the darkness he went. The air was silent and still now, only the sounds of his and Trent’s footsteps echoing around them. His friend’s footsteps dimmed, becoming quieter and quieter, until Chandler couldn’t hear them anymore. He was alone now, with only infinite mirror versions of himself to keep him company.

He stopped for a moment to admire himself in said mirrors. He stepped close to one and started twisting and turning to check out every angle of himself. He had never been in one of these places before, but weren’t they supposed to have mirrors that made you skinnier than a twig and fatter than Trump? All his reflections looked pretty normal. Not that he was complaining, of course.

He stroked his chin and smirked at his reflection. “ _ Man, I’m pretty. _ ” He then broke down laughing; Johnny Bravo was a classic.

His laughing stopped when he heard the mirror behind him crack. He turned his head just in time to watch it explode into a million shards of glass. Chandler ducked to the ground and covered his head, bearing the little pieces of glass that cut into his skin. He got up after a few seconds, then looked around wildly. What was that? What just happened?

_ Come on, McCann, you gonna let a broken mirror get the best of you?  _

Panting, he stood up. First thing he did was check his arms; they were bleeding at the cuts, but only little driplets. Nothing too severe. “Don’t be a pussy,” he growled to himself. “It’s just those girls trying to scare you… damn, one of them better give me head after what they did to my arm.”

He had taken all of five steps when he heard something. A loud scream rose from faraway, and it chilled Chandler to the bone. 

“Trent.”

Forgetting his arms and forgetting making it out of the Hall of Mirrors, he dashed back and took a swift left to find his friend. “Trent!” he called out. He knew Trent would be easy to scare, but there was something about that scream that told him something was wrong. It was too visceral to be the product of a girl jumping out and yelling,  _ “Boo!” _

Chandler ran into a small corner of mirrors, and gasped when he looked down at the ground and found bloody trails on the ground. Eyes widening with fear, he followed the trail into a single mirror on his left. His breath caught when he saw that his reflection wasn’t in the mirror…

...but Trent’s was.

“T-Trent?”

The Trent in the mirror’s eyelids shot apart, and Chandler screamed. There were no eyes underneath, only empty black chasms. Trent smirked, then adjusted his glasses, as if that would help the empty voids on his face see Chandler better. “Hello Chandler,” he said. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be trying to get out and get your kiss?”

“Trent… what the fuck? How… how are you in the mirror?”

The boy in the mirror cocked his head, as if confused. “Why does that matter? Is it really a big deal how I choose to live?”

“Choose to l-live? What’s… what’s going on?”

The boy’s head cocked further. Chandler watched in horror as the neck snapped and Trent’s head fell upside down, suspended only by a broken neck. That expression of confusion never left his face. “Chandler, buddy… you gotta get out, man. You gotta get that kiss.”

“FUCK THE KISSES! Just… how do I help you? What do I do?”

“Oh Chandler...”

The confused look was replaced by one of pure insanity. His smile stretched wide, so wide that the corners of his mouth touched his ears and revealed rows of crooked, yellow teeth. The holes were his eyes should’ve been began to glow, like lights shooting out of a projector. Chandler was momentarily blinded. When he regained his vision, the Trent in the mirror was gone, and in his place… was that Luan girl from earlier. 

Her smile was just as wide and demented.

“ _ Mirror, mirror, on the wall, _ ” she sang, “ _ who’s the deadest of them all? _ ”

Chandler heard himself whimper when her eyes narrowed in on him. “Buddy, if I were you, I’d  _ hall _ ass out of here. HAHA, geddit?”

Chandler screamed as she lunged at him out of the mirror, still laughing like a rabid hyena. He jumped back and started to run. He threw one cautionary look over his back to see that it wasn’t Luan pursuing him… it was Maggie. The girl was on all-fours, leaping and running like a red-eyed wolf. Her snarls followed Chandler as he rushed through the maze of mirrors.

“Please God, please God, please please please,” he begged under his ragged breath as he ran. He didn’t believe in God before, but he didn’t believe in whatever Luan and Maggie were, so all bets were off as he dashed through the corridors. His eyes flitted to mirrors that accompanied him as he ran, and he made a horrifying discovery; the Chandlers in the mirrors all ran like he did, but their heads were always pointed at him. When they noticed him, they began to grin at him; their mouths looked exactly like Luan’s.

Chandler screamed, and his reflections laughed.

He ran and ran, only occasionally glancing back to catch a glimpse of Maggie pursuing him with death in her eyes. Eventually, a bright green light appeared above his head with that most merciful of words accompanying it: EXIT. Chandler followed the arrow and rushed faster than before. He didn’t look back now – he didn’t have the time – so he wasn’t sure if the air on the back of his neck was just air condition or Maggie’s venomous breaths.

He saw the door… he got closer to the door… his hand reached out to grab the doorknob…

A pair of hands grabbed his shoulders, and threw him in the air, sending him flying to the wall. He smashed into a mirror, then fell limp to the ground.

The last things he saw while conscious were Maggie and Luan coming closer. Tears blurred his vision before he closed his eyes for the last time.

Maggie and Luan stood over the unconscious boy, both licking their lips. Luan took his arm in her hands, ran her tongue over her sharp canines, then bit into the boy’s flesh…

* * *

  
  
  


“...and he tasted just like chicken!”

Luan giggled. She shook in her place, but she didn’t have much room to move. The straps they wrapped around her to tie her to her chair were  _ tight _ , and the handcuffs around her wrists were chained to the table, rendering her basically incapable of moving. That was fine, though – all she needed to move for an interview was her mouth. She stared ahead to the sheet of glass, knowing full well that there were SCP agents standing behind it, talking into microphones that masked their voices. 

It was almost amusing for Luan. But then again, everything was.

“And after this, you and 975-RW-03 set the Hall of Mirrors on fire, as the report says?” asked the low voice.

“No. Me and  _ Maggie  _ (say her name, don’t be rude) blew it up. With dynamite. You should’ve seen it, there was smoke everywhere. We wanted to give the day a really  _ explosive _ ending. Haha, geddit?”

“That wasn’t a pun. You literally caused an explosion.”

Luan rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun.”

“What I find not fun, Luan, are your lies.”

Luan blinked innocently. “Lies? Why, good sir, I never lie.”

“In the story you just told us, you clearly embellished details about your victims and their backstories. Unless you’ve been hiding mind-reading abilities from us, there’s no way you could’ve known what they were doing before you met them. You also assigned to yourself and 975- I mean,  _ Maggie _ , abilities that, to the best of our knowledge, neither of you have. And finally, you’ve portrayed Maggie as a hunter, instead of detailing her known tactic of causing Apathy to her victims.”

“But she did cause Apathy! You think Chandler passed out because he hit a wall? He passed out because of her powers.”

“Regardless, we cannot help but feel that your story is mostly a lie.”

Luan was silent for a moment. The air was still, as if the universe itself was waiting on her words. When she looked back up, a tricky smirk graced her face.

“Oh Doctor,” she said, “who really knows with me? It’s all just…  _ smoke and mirrors. _ ”

She started to laugh, and she didn’t stop for a long, long time. 


	6. Short Story #3: Lake-side Brawl

**_In an undisclosed location underground_ **

Lynn Loud Jr was bored.

Dreadfully bored.

The jock was laying on a plain bed looking up to the ceiling as the lights shone down on her slightly tanned skin, in the corner of the room laid a dead D-Class propped up against the corner, his right arm torn off and parts of his torso looked roughly bitten and torn into with bite marks and flayed pieces of flesh and the orange jumpsuit hanging uselessly.

Lynn sighed before she furrowed her eyebrows in irritation, “Honestly it feels like I’ve been here forever and its been like a week!” She shouted incredulously throwing up her hands in frustration, she’s annoyed, and since the others are close by, they’re annoyed too.

They’re practically locked up like animals by some stupid humans that believe they can  _ stop _ them? That they can put off the inevitable of either becoming food for her gut or become part of the family? She’d laugh but due to the circumstances that they’re currently in, that would be facetious of her to do so. While she might have a big ego, and one not helped by the terrible new strengths and urges she now has to unleash on those less than her, and arrogance, sometimes cripplingly so (though Chris and the others are helping her to keep herself in check and gain a handle on that.).

But Lynn isn’t suicidally stupid, unlike most of those anime or comic book villains that she seen Lio and Lincoln watched/read sometimes, she can be open to new possibilities provided they’re fun. Not that she ever had any intentions of becoming an infectious man eating girl that’s contributing to making more of herself and killing those that resist but what can she do? Either break mentally or give in to the madness and share the bliss of depravity that her sisters and brothers had tasted like sweet fat? Looking back, she might have gone a bit heavy handed, but she loved them all the same, even as they were coaxed to jumping towards the brink, but at least they had each other in a sense.

“Hmm, maybe Lucy is rubbing off on me a little…” She mused scratching her chin in thought of her little goth sibling. But getting off-track, these humans are smart, dangerously so, even more than the ones they usually deal with, thinking these are just kids that bullets and grenades can solve the problem. Unlike the military, this...SCP Foundation has contained them, some difficulty in catching them still standing, but throw enough bodies and money with enough of an idea of what you’re dealing with, anyone can score a slam dunk on bagging the lot of them, only consolation is that Lincoln wasn’t there when they caught them. It made Lynn smile a little that he’s probably going to figure out a way to break them out.

On the other hand, she isn’t ignorant to not take note that they aren’t the only things contained here. While being moved she saw doors, lots of doors, and based on the chatter, they contained a lot of weird things.

Dangerous things.

Likely even more dangerous than they are, and while she despised their locking up of her friends and family, she knows that if some of these things get out, stuff will get very unpleasant for all parties involved, so in the end, Lynn supposed she’d let Chris and the others infect the more pleasant guys to keep this place running, out of sight and out of mind she always like to go about doing. But all in all, things are so boring, she wakes up, stare at the ceiling, walk about the room, checking for possible weakness in her chamber so she can break out on her own without them giving her an acid bath, they come in asking questions about their intentions and take samples, the former of which she just smirks and act rather coy about it, especially when they inquire about Lincoln.

Not like they can really coax information out of her by force since that’d piss her off and lose them valuable personnel, not that Lynn knows if they are even valuable and just a random scrub scientist, any egghead can say they run the show from how she puts it. 

Speaking of these other SCPs, she can’t help but recall that time she encountered one of those freaks of nature, not that she doesn’t see the irony in that thinking but compared to that weird thing she’s practically a human. They got out of there before those SCP guys showed up but before then it was a rather a jarring thing, what was it they called it? SCP-096? Yeah that must it…

Lynn can remember that time clear as day, just minding her business and enjoying the great outdoors with her Blue Shell, Chris. That was before that thing came and started up some shit with them both...

  
  


* * *

  
  


Lynn yelled in exertion hanging onto the neck of the creature that was sprinting after Chris who was running as fast as his smaller in comparison legs as possible, if he was still human, it would’ve been a futile effort.

Good thing he’s no longer human to begin with. The numerous physical tests Lisa ran on them to see just how far they can stretch the envelope with their new badass selves, and as it turns out, at the very least, even someone adversed to physical exercise like Lincoln can run up to 30 mph, 50 if he augment his legs, the small wonders of their new bodies.

She tried to pull it by its head away from her boyfriend as the trees rushed past them as it wailed in terrified fury. Lynn tugged sharply to the left throw off its balance and crash it through a tree or two, to her dismay it was still racing after Chris after a slight stumble, “Oh come on!” She complained, how one-tracked mind this thing is!?

Chris kept running with his eyes closed in exertion, huffing and puffing, he’s not exactly wheezing like his girlfriend’s brother would but jeez this thing just won’t quit, take a breather, contemplate its life choices, SOMETHING. Until he realized that he didn’t feel anymore ground beneath him anymore and was just kicking...air? Opening his eyes, he looked down to see that he had ran off the slope…

He sighed in resignation, “Dang it.” Chris deadpanned before gravity took control and the boy plummeted with a yell, before tumbling down the sandy slope with incoherent babbling like human-shaped ball, SCP-096 and Lynn soon following after with a rather uncanny yell similar to a schoolgirl coming from the former surprisingly enough, and the latter making a dog-like yelp as they followed suit, if there was anyone nearby one could see three distinct shapes rolling downhill.

Thankfully the ride was over in a few seconds as the trio of murderous SCPs crashed into a ditch in a puff of sand and dirt, covering them in a blanket of it.

Lynn poked her head out of the sand as she looked around, “Chris? Where are ya Chris!?” She called out to him as a few seconds afterwards, Chris popped out of the sand mound as he knocked out the sand in his ears.

“Yeah I’m here, I think my neck snapped.” He mused as he poked at the noticeable bump that was a part of his spine sticking out, his neck looking lopsided as a result, Lynn sighed a bit and dug herself out, now on all fours and shook off the sand and dirt like a dog, while Chris snapped the neck back into its proper place, the joys of regeneration he supposed.

Lynn looked at him a bit concerned as she asked him, “Hey, you’re alright? Was ah, a nasty fall.” She commented, scratching the back of her head, sure she knows that any of them can come back from basically a pool of blood, well, the family and friends anyways. But she can’t help but fret a little about him, leading to some unneeded squeeing from her other siblings when they see her displays of affection to Chris, though a quick Lynn-kick to the head to show her disapproval usually shut them up.

“Well nothing too major, anything else I’d just heal up in a few seconds, but um...are you fine?” Chris said pointing back the same question to her, making her blush a little and adopt a prideful expression as she sat on the sand mound, “What? Me? Hurt? Ha! I’m Lynn Loud, of course no dang ditch is gonna stop these babies.” She boasted, raising her arms to flex her biceps for emphasis, grinning before it soften some, “But thanks for asking.” She added shortly.

Chris smiled at her response before Lynn then remembered something, something quite important to consider, “So, quick question, is that thing dead or suffocating in sand?” Lynn questioned, making the boy adopt a thinking expression.

“Well based on the fact that he seems immune to trees and everything, I wouldn’t think so…” He considered as the mound they were sitting on started to shake violently, Lynn adopted an annoyed expression, “Figures.” The mound exploded in a cloud of sand, throwing the pair into the air as they yelled in surprise. SCP-96 flailed about with his long claws in a frenzied wail of anger, of perhaps the fact the ones that has seen his visage brought him great pain as they still draw breath, or maybe the idea of children evading its fatal blows drove it to such lengths. 

They grunted on impact with the ground before Lynn reacted to SCP-96 attempting to skewer her through the chest with his claw, rolling to her left as it swiped at her, slashing into her back through her jersey. She hitched her teeth in slight pain as black ichor flowed out of the wound before hopping up to her feet to deflect the second swipe with her fist and leaped forward to punch it straight through its chest out the other side making Lynn grin savagely at the seemingly fatal hit as SCP-96 cried in pain, only for her to look confused when it grabbed her by the head like a ball and threw her away towards a nearby parking lot that was next to Lake Michigan.

“Bullshit!” Was all Lynn could yell out as she was sailing into a random car parked in the Lot as the car alarm went off from her crashing on top of the roof. “Lynn!” Chris shouted out in concern for her before SCP-96 glared in his direction and roared angrily despite the hole where its heart should be.

“Oh jeez!” He started to run towards the parking lot to try and get something between him and this thing, and so Lynn doesn’t have to travel back to assist, even as the people in the lot were fleeing for their lives from this unnatural monstrosity chasing a “normal” kid, though they didn’t see him starting to emit puffs of gas from his body, lined with heavy sedatives, more than enough to knock out an elephant ten times over, but for some reason the damn thing won’t go to sleep or at least have the courtesy to yawn!

Lynn looked up from her resting place to see SCP-96 in a parking lot swiping at Chris who deftly ducked beneath the swing of its lengthy claws, pushing cars out of the way of its target, it was then that Lynn growled in anger and banged her fist on the car, denting the hood in the process, “Get your stinking claws away from him!” She yelled at it and leapt from the roof of a car to cling onto it’s back. The larger of the two SCPs flailed about to dislodge her as she sank her now needle-like teeth into its neck and yanked strongly back, attempting to rip out SCP-96’s throat and was rewarded from the torn flesh, blood spurted out from the wound while Lynn looked disgusted at the taste and spat it out.

“Gah! It tastes like raw sewage!” She complained about the meat of the SCP, she’s no stranger to eating raw flesh, heck, she enjoys eating humans if given the chance, but this thing has no appealing flavor, this would be something maybe Lana would enjoy biting out of. SCP-96 cried out in pain but still it wasn’t going down, despite the blood running, as it started to shake around to dislodge her.

Chris looked at the situation and adopted a serious expression, he used the opportunity to then begin to emit a green gas from his pores as they started to engulf the two SCPs, with SCP-96 beginning to roar in irritation at the caustic gas while Lynn was unaffected. 

“The fuck did this thing even come from!? Looks like it jumped outta Lucy’s horror movies!” She questioned incredulously as she punched at SCP-96’s face incessantly, it seemed to react to the blows with pain surprisingly enough, very few tools are able to slow down SCP-96 sufficiently.

“I dunno Lynn! But I don’t think he even belongs anywhere in the Animal Kingdom!” Chris replied in a worried tone, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the memories of utter bafflement, he was taking a well-earned bathroom break near a small pitstop town, having taken Lynn out for a jog in the Warren Dunes State Park near Royal Woods, then as he came out of the stall, all of a sudden he hears the screams of fleeing humans. Now at first he thought it was Lynn having her fun, until it was then that damn thing broke through the wall of the bathroom as he was washing his hands.

Then it just threw him through a wall to outside where he was forced to flee into the nearby forest trail and Lynn showed up behind them and well, that was that.

“Considering the fact that this thing is basically walking around with a torn out neck and a hole in its chest I’d agree with ya!” Lynn admitted as she grit her sharp teeth with anger as she slammed a right hook into SCP-96’s head and while she felt the skull fracture from the hit, it was awfully persistent. It wasn’t until some random woman got a good look at SCP-96’s face while fleeing that made the anorexic juggernaut weep and unhinged its wide mouth in terrified fury as it chased after the woman pulling Lynn along for the ride, “Woah!” She yelled as she dug into the shoulders to hold on, before she gripped too hard and fell off, holding onto useless pieces of meat.

“Ugh.” She groaned in disgust and threw the flesh to the ground while Chris helped her up, “Your scratch is gone.” He noted as there was nothing but unblemished skin and dried up fluids, “Yeah, looks like it is, but what’s that thing doing?” She mused as Lynn and Chris watched curiously SCP-96 as it pounced upon the woman and tore her apart quite gruesomely in the process, though the two are no strangers to mutilation, hell, Lucy brought back a few of her kills to do burial practice and they looked like they had seen better days.

“Killing but I’d assume that’s besides the point, it just killed her just for looking at it? But now that I think about it, we did see that thing in a picture on that one dude’s phone after we killed him.” Chris mused with a thinking expression as the SCP moved away from the mangled corpse and sliced another passerby in two with a single swipe of its claws, screeching at the felled human, making Lynn scoff, now it’s just showing off.

She punched her fists together as she came to the proper conclusion, “That’s it! He must be killing anyone who sees his face!” Lynn stated, Chris held his head in surprise at the idea, at first it just seemed like it killed those two for the heck of it, but the evidence was there, “Actually that makes sense, but how are we gonna stop that thing? Its like some kind of Perpetual-Motion Monster.” He stated throwing up his hands in exasperation at the situation.

Lynn looked with a dull expression at her boyfriend’s complex words, she’s not Lisa dammit with her brainy stuff, “Perpetual-what now?” She asked in a monotone, making Chris blush a little with embarrassment at his use of the term, all the while people screamed in terror as SCP-96 went on to attack “easier” prey as it were, systematically killing them off.

“Eheh...well it just means that he probably doesn’t get tired, hungry, feel pain, stuff like that, so the best way to get rid of it…” He began as Lynn made a competitive smirk and clenched her right fist, raising it in a challenge, “Gotta disable the bastard first!” She declared as she bolted towards the rampaging SCP, grabbing the front bumper of nearby truck to hoist it into the air to use as a club.

“Hey ugly!” She called out to SCP-96 who was about to kill another civilian who was muttering in fear, braced against a metal pole as the creature was about to swing its powerful claw at the gazer when it then tasted half a ton worth of vehicular mileage to the face as it screeched in pain, tossing it about a few good feet away as the man slowly opened his eyes to see a 13-year old girl with a determined grin on her face but he widened them in disbelief at the damaged car she was holding with ease, throwing it aside as she eyed the pole he was leaning up against.

Walking up to the pole, she looked at him and then to the object, “I’m gonna need to borrow this.” She mentioned to him idly and despite his protests, Lynn wrench the metal pole from the pavement with ease as she hefted it on her shoulder like a lumberjack carrying a log, as she let out a battle cry and charged at the prone SCP who was getting back up to attack its aggressor but soon found out that its hands and feet were stuck to the ground by a sticky adhesive, courtesy of Chris utilizing a gas that when it reacts to an organic substance, it hardens and calcifies several times to a substance harder than most grades of steel, in time SCP-96 would have broken free but in this case, not much time to do anything of the sort as Lynn jammed the pole straight into its torso.

The jock relished its cries of pain but that was one part of the puzzle done so to speak, it’ll just free itself and continue after them at some point, so she’ll just make sure it won’t have the means to pursue.

She roughly stepped on SCP-96’s left shoulder for leverage and grabbed its arm and pulled, HARD. With a wet squelch Lynn pulled the arm out its socket as the screams intensified, blood spurted on her jersey, the screams and running of blood exciting the infected girl as shown by the dilation of her pupils, such palpable fear from this thing…

“That’s right you bitch, scream all you want, you shouldn’t have fucked with the wrong people in the first place!” She yelled out as she went on to do the same process to its other arm and then the legs, practically incapacitating the previously unstoppable SCP, a feat a handful can only accomplish. Chris stood on the sidelines waiting for his adorably murderous Red Shell to be finished as he whistled to himself, he can imagine the incident is going to draw eyes to this scene, fortunately any witnesses were silenced by this fella, so that’s one thing in their favor, it’s too soon to go fully public now, until when Lynn gets around to infecting her sports team anyways when she has a game, he heard baseball season is almost over and football season is starting up…

As soon as Lynn was done showboating anyways.

“You thought you could stop Lynnsanity from kicking your ass up and down this parking lot? Now look at ya, a goddamn wailing stumpy, that’s what you get loser!” She taunted the disabled SCP with a smug look of satisfaction as she let out a deep breath and breathed out, calming herself down as she said to Chris, “Alright, now I’m done, Chris, you should put this guy on ice, if you catch my drift.” 

He nodded in agreement, “You read my mind.” Chris then moved his hands to SCP-96 and began to emit a blue-tinted gas from his palms to encase the creature, the gas? Nitrogen.

A thick sheet of ice soon encased and immobilized SCP-96 further after a few seconds, as Chris stopped outputting the gas and placed his hands on his hips, proud of himself, “And that takes care of that.” He mused as Lynn smiled and wrapped an arm around his neck.

“Ya got that right Chris, Team Awesome 1 and Ugly 0! He thought he could stack up against their badass teamwork and here he is down for the count, the crowd goes wild at the uncontested winning streak of Lynn Loud Jr and Christopher Taylor Jr!” She exclaimed, pumping her free arm into the air and imitating a crowd cheering for their success.

“Well I’m glad you’re happy about this, so we should tell the others about what we encountered?” Chris asked with a joyful smile, Lynn’s excitement is rather infectious in its own way.

“Definitely! They aren’t gonna believe this!” She declared as she and Chris then felt the presence of Lincoln in their hivemind connection.

_ “Not going to believe what? You’ve been rather excited for a while and the others kinda want to know.” _

“I’m coming to show ya right when I get back.” She replied back with a smug smile on her face.   
  


_ “But can’t you just show us your memories or something?” _

“EHHH. Wrong Stincoln, it’s better to bask when there’s actual people to bask around if you catch my drift, but I’ll say it’s something straight outta your comic books or Lio’s weird anime thing.” Lynn stated with a huff while Chris shook his head amused by what was going on. 

_ “Oh...well alright then, be back soon, Lori doesn’t want us to stay out for too long, and please don’t do anything noticeable.” _

“Yeah yeah, tell Lori I’ll be there as soon as I can, Ms.Amazon doesn’t have to worry about a thing.” She informed her little brother as his presence receded, Lynn looked to Chris and gestured to follow her as they took off from the disastrous scene, a feeling of triumph and satisfaction was felt in her well, non-existent heart but the metaphor is there.

  
  
  


“Good times, good times.” She said to herself in her cell, she didn’t know much of the aftermath but there was breaking news about the event that happened, they didn’t have much footage of the actual thing except stills of what was after, with big ugly seemingly gone, at first she was a bit miffed that he wasn’t sitting there thinking about what he did, but after she was now familiar with the SCP Foundation, Lynn reasoned that they probably retrieved him and laid down a cover story about an explosion of some gas tank or whatever, Lynn couldn’t help but snort at that bullshit piece.

But when she was brought in, they were surprised that she had apparently defeated SCP-96, it seems that her moment of fun in disabling the creature, they had mused that she instilled a similar level of reluctance to attack her as it did to SCP-682, namely fidgeting, crying and clawing at its face whenever she looked at a picture of him when they want to conduct any tests, heh, bitch.

Same results were more or less the same among the other infected, not to the same intensity but a sense of wariness was felt by others.

It goes to show that there’s much out there that they didn’t know and assumed taking over the world would be simple, ugh, that’s why there’s long term planners like Lisa and Lincoln to sniff out their priorities properly, no chance of winning the Superbowl if you don’t have a good coach and Play-by-Play on the strategy book.

SCP, GOI, THI, Church of the Broken God, Chaos Insurgency, and others, they all have to go, but perhaps it's better to go by teams instead of sweeping them all at once and stretch themselves too thin, then they’ll know whose top dog, whose number one, and its them.

The speaker crackled on inside her cell as she glared up at it impatiently, “SCP-975-08?” A neutral voice of a female scientist called out to her.

“What do you want? Did Pete stub his toe trying to get out of Lucy’s room?” Lynn sarcastically questioned the voice.

“It’s Dr.Rights Lynn, and I have a proposition for you.” She calmly stated.

Lynn sat up on her bed quickly, suspicious yet intrigued, “What kind of proposition?” She inquired, narrowing her eyes in response, what’s her game?

“How would you like to have more room to be...yourself?”

Lynn thought about it for a second, before she smiled.

It was all teeth. 

  
  
  
  



	7. Side Story #4: The Trial

The lifestyle of the rich and the famous was certainly enviable. Never having to go without, always seeming to have nary a care in the world, having everything you could ever want at your disposal and always have servants waiting for you hand and foot to serve your every whim. Most people could only dream of living the high life. Those fortunate few that could enjoy living the good life often took their wealth for granted and looked down on those that they perceived to be lesser beings. For the rich fat man known by associates as Lord Tetherby, that was certainly true. Tetherby was a man so greedy, arrogant, and gluttonous that he looked down upon his own distant family for not possessing the same wealth that he did. Oftentimes, the pig could be found riding around in his fancy limousines whenever he wasn’t playing golf at his private country club or stuffing his face with caviar. When you live in luxury as long as Tetherby did, you start to get the idea that you’re untouchable and on another plane of existence altogether. That type of thinking tends to make you several enemies and as Tetherby would soon find out, money can’t buy you a way out of everything. 

Tetherby was enjoying a nice drive through town in his limo, occasionally sticking his head out of the sunroof and flaunting his cash in front of the civilians he rode past. Kicking back in his seat to enjoy a nice serving of wine, Tetherby was surprised when his vehicle suddenly came to a stop. His surprise quickly turned to anger as he questioned his chauffeur.

“Driver! Why have we stopped?” Tetherby asked his beleaguered chauffeur.

“Sir, it would appear that there are two kids standing in the street,” The chauffeur informed him.

“Well just run them over and get the show on the road, I have places to be,” Tetherby demanded.

“Sir, we literally  _ just _ settled out of court for striking that young girl a month ago,” the driver reminded him. “The last thing we need is another lawsuit.”

“Very well,” Tetherby sighed, “Just get out there and make them get out of the way!”

“As you wish, sir,” the Chauffeur said in a tone that made it clear he didn’t get paid enough to deal with this crap. He opened the door to the limousine and stepped outside to confront the two children. 

Tetherby was content to sipping his fine wine before noticing that a couple of minutes had gone by since he’d sent his driver out to deal with those kids. Something wasn’t right here… that son of bitch had forgot to address him as “Lord Tetherby, sir”! The nerve of that pencil pusher. Tetherby would be sure to dock his pay for that offense. 

“Guards, get out and check to see what’s taking Winston so long,” Tetherby instructed his two guards. “And if those brats are still in the streets, give them a proper talking to as well.”

“Yes sir, Lord Tetherby sir!” The guards said before exiting the car.

A few moments later, Tetherby heard the sound of a struggle ensuing just outside his limo. Thinking nothing of it, the fat bastard took another sip of his wine.

“Man, they are fucking those kids up,” Tetherby chuckled before the front doors to his limo opened. Tetherby just assumed it was his staff getting back in and thought nothing of it. “So I take it that little distraction was taken care of?”

He received no response and instead his limo pulled forward. At first, Tetherby once again thought nothing of it, but started to grow suspicious when his driver missed a crucial turn.

“Driver, you were supposed to take a right back there!” He yelled, only to be ignored. “Hello, dummy! Are you listening to me!?”

Before Tetherby knew what was happening, his limo suddenly accelerated to top speed, flying through the streets of Royal Woods and causing the billionaire to spill wine on himself.

“Augh! You stupid bastard, you made me ruin my suit!” Tetherby yelled. “Now take me to the dry cleaners so I can fix this mess!”

Once again, his driver refused to listen and instead took him on a high speed joyride through the town. Still, Tetherby had no idea what on Earth was going on. Finally, his limo came to a sudden halt.

“What’s going on, you incompetent boob?” Tetherby demanded.

The window separating Tetherby from his driver suddenly rolled down and revealed in the front seat to be two faces we’re all familiar with: Lynn Loud Jr and Chris Taylor Jr. 

“Where to, Tetherby?” Chris taunted him before Lynn let out a sinister laugh.

“What the hell is going on here!?” Tetherby asked. “Where the hell is my driver?”

“Right here!” Lynn said before tossing Tetherby the bloody severed head of his driver, causing the latter to freak out.

“What the fuck!?” Tetherby screamed, nearly jumping out of his seat before trying in vain to open the door to his limo and make a mad dash for freedom. Unfortunately for him, both Chris and Lynn had the foresight to lock the doors on him. “What kind of sick joke is this!?”

“No joke, rich boy,” Lynn told him, “You’re wanted for previous crimes against my family and the time has come for you to pay the piper.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I have a spotless criminal record,” Tetherby said.

“Yeah, but only because you paid off police and elected officials,” Chris pointed out.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tetherby said as he continued trying to escape. “Unlock this damn door this instant, you hooligans!”

“I’m getting sick of this prick already, can I please just eat him now?” Lynn asked.

“Lynn, we promised your siblings we’d wait until they all got a piece of him,” Chris reminded her.

“Alright, fine,” Lynn huffed. “Let’s just hurry up and get him where we need to be so we can get this over with!”

“I’m on it,” Chris said before stepping on the gas.

“Are you sure you know how to drive this thing?” Lynn asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Chris replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you just took out that stop sign a few meters back,” Lynn informed him.

“Oops,” Chris said. “Still, I don’t know if letting you drive would be the best move.”

“Why is that?” Lynn asked.

“Because you learned how to drive by playing GTA,” Chris said.

“What’s your point?” Lynn asked.

“Last time I let you drive, you ran over 7 pedestrians, did a drive by on 6 people and hit 5, drove through a hospital and  _ then  _ hijacked a police helicopter,” Chris pointed out, “and for this little shindig, we’re trying to keep a low profile.”

“Meh, I guess you’re right,” Lynn said.

While all this was going on, Tetherby was trying to escape through the sunroof, only to find that that was locked too.

“What’s wrong, mate?” Chris asked mockingly. “Wanna get some fresh air? Maybe show off your cash stash to all the “poor people” a little more? Don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to share your wealth real soon.”

Tetherby then resorted to trying to kick out the windows of his prized limo, once again to no avail.

“Having that bulletproof glass really backfired on you, huh?” Lynn taunted him. “If I were you, I’d sit back and enjoy that little glass of rosé you’ve got there. After all, it may be the last time you get the chance.”

“What do you mean  _ maybe _ ?” Chris asked.

“Well, I wanna give the fatass a little bit of hope,” Lynn said. “It’ll make him so much juicier when I eat him.”

“What is the meaning of this!?” Tetherby asked. “I demand an explanation!”

“You’ll get an explanation soon enough!” Lynn assured him. “Just try to relax for right now.”

Eventually the limo came to a halt in front of a large courthouse. Tetherby still couldn’t tell what was going on, but he could tell that there was no way this house belonged to these kids. Just why they’d kidnapped him was the biggest mystery to him. If he hadn’t been so busy panicking, the rich idiot would’ve used his overly expensive gold and jewelry encrusted smartphone to call the police. Instead, he waited until he had been taken to a discrete location before even pulling out his phone, at which point Lynn snatched it out of his hands and lampshaded his stupidity.

“Wow, and I was wondering why the cops weren’t on our ass the entire time we were on our way here,” Lynn laughed, crushing the phone in her hands. “Apparently, being rich causes you to lose major brain cells.”

“Listen, I don’t know what you want, but-,” Tetherby tried to plea, only for his begging to fall on deaf ears.

“What we want is for you to be dead,” Lynn said quickly. “Save your begging for later.”

“Listen, I-,” Tetherby said, only getting two words out before Lynn pounced at him with teeth bared, only for Chris to hold her back.

“Lynn! We promised!” Chris reminded her.

“I know, but this fool’s pathetic groveling is getting on my damn nerves!” Lynn snarled before shooting a glance at Tetherby and warning him “Try to run and this time he won’t be able to stop me from tearing you limb from limb.”

Tetherby was still tempted to try making a break for it, but something told him that she wasn’t bluffing.

“I think I’ll handle escorting him to the others,” Chris said. “Just to make sure nothing happens to him prematurely.”

“Alright, fine,” Lynn said, allowing Chris to escort Tetherby inside the courthouse.

Tetherby held his breath as he was walked through the courthouse by Chris and Lynn. He would‘ve had to be blind to not notice the multiple mutilated corpses that littered the building, some of them missing limbs or having chunks bitten out of them. It was a very scary scene and it took all of his composure to keep Tetherby from pissing himself then and there. Or at least, he was able to keep from pissing himself for a solid two minutes. Eventually Tetherby was brought to a small office, where he came face to face with the rest of his captors. 

“Well look what the cat dragged in and pissed all over,” Lola remarked.

“Literally,” Lori added. “Still, you got him here faster than we anticipated.”

“Who- who are you people?” Tetherby asked, petrified.

“Awww, that’s really hurtful,” Luna said. “Are you saying that you don’t remember us?”

“Should I?” Tetherby asked.

“Yeah, should he?” Leni asked. “Because to be honest, I don’t remember who the hell this guy is.”

“This is the rich prick who tried turning our brother against us,” Lana pointed out before asking Tetherby “Are you starting to remember us now?”

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” Tetherby said. “I’ve turned a lot of family members against each other.”

“Maybe I can help jog your memory,” Lincoln said, revealing himself to Tetherby.

“Landon!” Tetherby called out. “Are these hooligans your family? Please call them off!”

“You see, I would… if my name was actually Landon,” Lincoln said.

“Oh, but of course!” Tetherby said. “I was just messing with you,…”

“You don’t remember me or my name?” Lincoln asked, actually offended.

“Why of course I do!” Tetherby lied. “I just wanna make sure I get it right… you know?”

“I’ll give you three guesses,” Lincoln deadpanned.

“Um… Lance?” Tetherby guessed.

“No,” Lincoln said.

“Leo?” Tetherby guesses again.

“No, that would be my brother,” Lincoln replied, with a hidden Lio chiming in from the darkest corner “And he spelled it wrong!”

“Umm… umm… Lincoln!” Tetherby said.

“Hmpf, he actually got it right,” Luna said in disbelief. “I honestly can’t believe it.”

“I know, and I was looking forward to eating him if he got it wrong for a third time,” Lincoln said.

“Lincoln!” Lori scolded him.

“I know, I know, we have official business with him and we’ll all get a piece of him, but I could at least put the fear of god into him,” Lincoln said.

“Official business?” Tetherby questioned. “I don’t recall having any business with the likes of you.”

“Au contraire, our rotund friend,” Luan said, “We seem to recall you trying to corrupt our impressionable little brother here and we don’t take too kindly to that.”

“So tell us, Tetherby…” Lucy said, spooking him. “How do you plan on making up for that transgression?”

Before Tetherby could respond, Lori answered for him. “I’ll tell you how you’re gonna make up for it…” She presented Tetherby with a contract. “You are going to sign all of your wealth as well as your estate over to us.”

“And why on Earth would I do that?” Tetherby asked.

“Should we skip to the part where we just eat him?” Leni asked innocently.

“Works for me,” Lynn said, licking her lips.

“You see, Tetherby, it doesn’t matter whether you sign the contract or not,” Lori said, “So what if we don’t get your wealth? We can still just kill you and move onto one of your rich limo friends to leech off of…” She grabbed Tetherby by his collar and pulled him close until their faces were just inches apart before smiling, revealing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. “But if you cooperate, you’ll find that you prolong your life just a little longer.”

Tetherby gulped before agreeing to their demands “Alright, alright, I’ll sign the bloody contract!” In the back of his mind, Tetherby thought to himself, “Not like this is official anyway.”

As if she were reading his mind, Luan said to him “Oh, and just so you know, every part of this document has been notarized by a lawyer.”

“What!?” Tetherby exclaimed as he finished writing his signature. “Since when!? Who’s the idiot who signed off on this!?”

“Ahem, I’d watch your language if I were you,” Luan said, pulling out an official business card reading “Luan Loud, Attorney at Law”. “Because that idiot is me.”

“There is no way this is legit!” Tetherby declared before Luan gave him her phone and told him “Look it up for yourself.”

Two short minutes later, Tetherby’s face sank as he muttered “Well I’ll be damned, it is legit. But how could you be an actual lawyer!? You’re a bloody teenager!”

“That’s not important,” Luan said, taking the signed contract from Tetherby. “What’s important is that we have your money. Man, things seem to be taking  _ attorney  _ for the worse for you.”

Luan let out a hearty giggle as Luna asked “So what do we do with him now?”

“I still wanna make him pay for the stunt he pulled with the limo,” Lincoln said.

“Same,” Lynn said, ready to pounce on the terrified man and devour him whole. “In fact, what are we waiting for, let’s skip straight to the messily ripping him apart part!”

“Calm down, Lynn,” Lori said, “this man has been kind enough to comply with our demands, it’s only fair that we hold up our end of the bargain.”

“Does that- does that mean you’re going to let me go?” Tetherby asked.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Lori said, “like I said, if you cooperated, it’d prolong your life a little longer. I didn’t say we’d let you go.”

“Then what are you going to do to me?” Tetherby asked.

Lincoln smirked at Tetherby and asked “Why do you think we brought you to a courthouse?”

“Because of it’s beautiful architecture?” Tetherby surmised.

“We’re putting you on trial,” Lucy informed him.

“On trial!?” Tetherby questioned. “On trial for what!?”

“For trying to turn our brother into an uppity snooty jerk,” Lola informed him, smiling evilly at Tetherby and asking “And guess who’s going to be acting as judge?”

“No! You can’t do this to me!” Tetherby protested as Leni and Luna each grabbed him by his arm and dragged him to the courtroom.

“Take him downstairs,” Lincoln commanded. “Let’s get this over with so we can start enjoying our newfound riches.”

Ten minutes later, Tetherby found himself sitting in a courtroom, anxiously awaiting his fate. Lori, Leni, Luna, Lynn, Chris, Lucy, Lana, and Lisa all acted as the jury; Lola played the role of judge; Lio acted as a court reporter, and Luan acted as both the prosecution and defense.

“All rise!” Lincoln said. “The honourable Judge Lola Loud presiding! Attorney Luan Loud is acting as both the prosecution and defense! Now if-,”

“Hold on a minute,” Tetherby objected, “Doesn’t it seem a little unfair to me that your sister is acting as both my accuser and my defender? Don’t you think that that presents a conflict of interest?”

“What’s your point?” Lola asked condescendingly.

“I was promised a fair trial so I think I’m entitled to at least have a lawyer who will work to defend me against whatever charges have been brought up against me?” Tetherby argued.

“Very well,” Lola said, “in this case, a public defender will be assigned to you since you clearly don’t have enough time to hire a real lawyer to defend you.”

“What kind of second class peon do you take me for?” Tetherby scoffed. “I could easily hire an entire team of crackpot defense attorneys to get me out of here in a pinch. Hell, I even have them on speed dial!”

“You mean on the phone I crushed to pieces?” Lynn reminded him with Lori chiming in “And besides, do you think that your crackpot team would be able to get here before we got impatient and decided to just eat you?”

“I say we let him take the chance?” Lincoln said smiling maliciously at Tetherby.

“No, no, I’ll take the public defender!” Tetherby said. “I’ll accept whoever you assign to defend me!”

“We thought you’d see it our way,” Lola said. “The only question is who amongst us is qualified to act as his defender?”

“If I could make a suggestion, why don’t we get Aniki to act as public defender?” Lio suggested.

“What!?” Both Chris and Tetherby asked, with Chris asking “Why me?”

“No, no, I think he’s onto something,” Luan said before holding Chris’ bangs to the side. “Doesn’t he look familiar with his hair like this?”

“You know, now that you mention it,” Lynn said, “doesn’t he look like…”

“Phoenix Wright!” Lincoln exclaimed. “Especially with those spiky weird bangs of his.”

“That’s great, but I don’t know anything about the law or being a lawyer,” Chris reminded them.

“Not to worry, Luan will walk you through the steps,” Lincoln assured him.

“Alright, I guess,” Chris agreed.

“Then it’s decided,” Lori said, “Blue will act as Tetherby’s public defender. Alright, any further questions?” When she received no response, she said, “Very well, let’s get this trial underway.”

“GUILTY!” Lola declared, banging her gavel.

“Lola, we promised him a fair trial,” Lincoln reminded her, giving Tetherby an ounce of hope that maybe he could escape with his life.

“Alright, fine,” Lola sighed, rolling her eyes. “Lana, go ahead and read the charges.”

“Tetherby-,” Lana said before being interrupted.

“That’s  _ Lord _ Tetherby to you!” Tetherby corrected her.

“Interrupt me again and we can skip this law and order shit and go straight to the eating you alive part,” Lana hissed.

“No, no, I’m sorry!” Tetherby apologized. “Please don’t kill me!”

“As I was saying,” Lana said before continuing, “Lord Tetherby, you are being charged with the attempted corruption of a minor and trying to turn our brother Lincoln into a big meanie. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty,” Tetherby declared.

“Boo!” The Loud sisters in the jury hissed with Leni yelling out “He’s lying!”, and Luna saying “Quit delaying the inevitable!”

“Order! Order in the court!” Lola declared, banging her gavel. “This trial is now underway, prosecution, present your opening argument.”

“Why of course, your honour,” Luan said, “ladies and gentlemen, the man standing before you today is not all he appears to be. Despite his high class appearance and almost endless supply of wealth, this man is a danger to the public. He is a predator who takes advantage of those he believes are lesser than him and then discards them like dirt when they are of no further use to him. That is precisely what he did to our good brother, manipulating him with promises of wealth and prestige, but then abandoning him when he lost his symbol of status. You may be asking yourself “Why is this such a big deal? So what if he took advantage of a foolishly gullible and naive boy?””

“Hey!” Lincoln protested indignantly, getting a giggle out of Luan before she became serious again.

“The answer to that question is that if this bigwig is willing to victimize a vulnerable little kid such as Lincoln, what’s to stop him from trying to victimize others?” Luan asked. “Who’s to say that Lincoln was the first kid he conned and tried to corrupt? Tried to twist to fit his own twisted mold of what a person should be? I’d even go so far as to argue that this Tetherby is a sociopath completely devoid of empathy. Therefore, it is my full recommendation to the jury that you return a guilty verdict. A man of his nature will only prey on those he looks down on and thus, is fit only to be devoured.”

“Does that conclude your opening statement?” Lola asked her.

“Yes, your honour,” Luan said, returning to her seat.

“Very well,” Lola said before pointing to Chris and instructing him “Defense, it is your turn to present your opening statement.”

“Oh, I um…” Chris stammered, struggling time come up with something to say before Luan lent him a hand.

“Psst,” Luan whispered. “This part isn’t too hard, just try and refute everything I just said. Argue that your client may be an awful human being, but that doesn’t warrant being eaten alive or any similar punishment.”

“Oh, yes, right, right,” Chris nodded his head before clearing his throat and making his attempt. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, there is no denying that Tetherby is indeed a piece of work, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to die for his crimes-,”

Luan couldn’t help but burst out into loud laughter at that statement for a couple minutes. She then wiped a tear from her eye and said “Good one.”

“But I’m just saying what you told me to say,” Chris pointed out.

“I know, I know,” Luan said, “you’re doing a great job, but hearing those words strung together in that order is just too hilarious.”

“Um, excuse me, but doesn’t it seem a bit nonsensical for the prosecution to be giving tips to the defense?” Tetherby asked. “It just seems unfair to me.”

“Eh, I’ll allow it,” Lola said nonchalantly, “Chris has no experience with being a lawyer and thus could use all the help he can get. Since Luan is the only other person amongst us who has any training and experience in law, it’s only appropriate that she show him the ropes.” Lola then turned to Chris and told him, “Continue with your opening argument.”

“Oh yeah, where was I?” Chris asked before continuing. “As I was saying, while my client is certainly amoral, for him to be sentenced to a cruel, unusual and extremely painful death would be a clear cut example of disproportionate retribution. While I in no way can influence what the jury decides, I can at least present the argument that my client is undeserving of death. For him to be sentenced to such a fate would be a gross miscarriage of justice.”

“Him breathing would be a gross miscarriage of justice,” Lucy said under her breath.

“Does that conclude your opening statement?” Lola asked Chris. 

“It does, your honour,” Chris said as he took his seat.

“Before we go any further, would the defendant like to say anything?” Lola asked.

“Yes I would,” Tetherby said, “By all appearances, this is clearly nothing more than a kangaroo court, a sham, an act! From the looks of things, I’m going to die no matter what happens!”

“Are you implying that we have no sense of integrity and are merely doing this for our own entertainment?” Lisa asked. “That’s not exactly going to endear you to the jury.”

“Hey, hey, turn that frown upside down  _ Lord  _ Tetherby,” Luan said mockingly. “Who knows, maybe we’ll be so entertained by your feeble attempts at proving your innocence that we’ll let you go.”

“R-Really?” Tetherby asked with a glimmer of hope.

“Mhmm,” Luan said, “but if you don’t want to go through with this and say that this is all just a kangaroo court, then maybe you can just try  _ hop _ right into Lynn’s gut.”

Tetherby looked to the jury and saw Lynn staring at him with manic eyes as she wrapped a handkerchief around her neck while licking her lips at him. Tetherby let out a gulp before deciding to proceed.

“Forget what I said, let us carry on,” Tetherby said.

“Before we go any further, I’d like to make an argument on behalf of my client,” Chris said, “I just want a complete understanding and a full commitment that if by some miracle, my client is proven not guilty, that we will let him go unscathed following this trial.”

“I’d sooner strangle that guppy bastard with my bare hands before I let him walk out of here drawing another breath!” Luna exclaimed, leaping from her seat before realizing what she said and saying sheepishly, “I’d like that last statement stricken from the record please.”

“Record?” Lio asked as he looked up from his book. “Is someone supposed to be writing all this down?”

“Yeah, you,” Lincoln pointed out with Lori saying “That’s literally your job as court reporter.”

“Oh, right, right,” Lio said, nodding his head as he picked up his notebook. “Forgive me, I find these diplomatic proceedings to be painfully boring.”

“I know, but you’re the guy who’s supposed to write down everything that goes on in the courtroom for future reference,” Lincoln told him.

“Sorry, sorry, I said I got bored!” Lio defended himself before asking Lincoln “Eh, can I look through your memories?”

“Lio, I am literally getting hungrier watching you two bicker rather than decide how Tetherby will fare,” Lori told him.

“Sorry Lori, I’ll try to do better in the future,” Lio said before writing down everything he’d heard so far. He then pointed his pen at Luna and said “However, I will oblige your request to keep that statement off the records.”

“Fortunately, you didn’t miss out on too much aside from our opening statements,” Luan said.

“Returning our attention to you, Tetherby,” Lola said, “do you have any possible excuse as for why you tried to trick our brother into becoming a snobbish jerk?”

“I wouldn’t say trick so much as I tried “enticing” him into seeing the greener side of life,” Tetherby argued.

“Objection!” Luan said, complete with dramatic finger point.

“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” Chris asked.

“Sorry, I’ll try  _ towing the line _ in the future,” Luan said before directing her attention to Tetherby. “As for you, by enticing do you mean planting an idea in our brother’s head that “poor people” or anyone without a limo was a “lesser being” and that since we, his siblings, didn’t have a limo that we were lesser beings?”

“Well my argument isn’t exactly wrong,” Tetherby said. “You’re acting as if any of those things you just said are factually incorrect.” It was only when Tetherby caught sight of the entire courtroom glaring holes through him that he realized he’d dug himself deeper into the hole. “I’d like that last statement stricken from the record please.”

“No take backs I’m afraid,” Lio quipped as he continued writing down everything that had just been said.

“I’m starting to get the vibe that this Tetherby guy thinks he’s better than us,” Leni said.

“That’s exactly what he’s saying,” Lynn pointed out with Lucy telling Leni “That’s the entire reason we’re here.”

“Well now I really don’t like this Tetherby guy,” Leni said. “He sounds like a real jerk.”

“We don’t like him either,” Lisa informed her, “but as a jury, we’re supposed to be fair and unbiased.”

“No further questions,” Luan said before pulling her next move. “The prosecution calls Lincoln to the stand.”

Lincoln seemed confused but took the stand nonetheless.

“Lincoln Loud, you were called to the stand to explain the events of the limo affair to the defendant and the court,” Luan said, “What could you say about the time you first got that limo for a day prize from that Mustard Raffle?”

“Well, I was pretty happy,” Lincoln said, “I was pretty glad that I won the contest and earned a prize that we could all enjoy as a family, driving around to any place we wanted.”

Luan nodded as said “You’ll recall that we gave you the opportunity to drive around by yourself because we felt you deserved it. Now can you recount your first meeting with Tetherby?”

“That’s  _ Lord  _ Tetherby to you, commoner!” Tetherby corrected her.

“Say Chris, what do you think we should eat this guy with?” Lynn asked. “I’ve got some nice quality hot sauce in the fridge back home.”

“I’ve got some nice carrots and seasoning if you want to borrow it,” Lana offered.

“Alright, I’m sorry!” Tetherby apologized. “Please don’t eat me, please go ahead Lincoln, I apologize!”

The Louds smirked at Tetherby’s pathetic groveling as Lincoln cleared his throat and continued.

“Anyway, it was during this solo ride that I first crossed paths with Tetherby,” Lincoln said. “He started talking about his wealth and offered to show me the high life. This was my first time riding in a limo so I’ll admit I let it go to my head, but I still planned on picking up my sisters so that we could hit up Burpin Burgers.”

“And do you mind explaining to the jury exactly what prevented you from following through with your plans?” Luan asked Lincoln.

“No, I don’t mind explaining at all,” Lincoln said, pointing at Tetherby and saying “the defendant essentially told me that I shouldn’t waste time with people without limos. That they weren’t on my level and weren’t worth my time. I’m ashamed to admit that I fell for his ploy and spent the entire evening riding around with Tetherby, completely forgetting about my sisters in the process.”

“Objection!” Chris shouted. “I fail to understand how your failure to uphold your promise falls on my client. You were very much aware of your obligations and could’ve told Tetherby off at any given moment, so why does Tetherby bear the fault?”

“You make an excellent argument,” Luan acknowledged, “however, while one could say that Tetherby bears no blame for Lincoln’s decision, he absolutely does bear the blame for the events that followed. Lincoln, please continue your tale.”

“So Tetherby and I rode around in our Limos for the entirety of the afternoon and he introduced me to pleasures I didn’t even know were possible.”

“See?” Tetherby asked, “I have the kid an experience he’ll never forget! I can’t be that bad of a guy!”

“Lord Tetherby, I am going to have to ask you to refrain from interrupting the witness’ testimony in the future,” Lola warned him, “otherwise I will find you in contempt of court and have you declared guilty without question. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Tetherby squeaked.

“Please Continue Lincoln,” Lola said.

“So anyway, Tetherby invited me to a fancy party at his mansion,” Lincoln said, “I, of course, was really looking forward to it and had every intention of leaving my sisters behind to attend… and then karma intervened. I started acting like a huge jerk and when my time ran out, I was kicked out of the limo. A bunch of other crazy shit happened and I got a little fucked up, but I still made it to Tetherby’s party.”

“And could you please explain to the court what Tetherby did. when you arrived?” Luan asked.

“He promptly had me kicked off his estate with extreme prejudice because I didn’t have a limo anymore,” Lincoln said, causing Tetherby’s heart to sink.

“And there you have it ladies and gentlemen,” Luan said, walking around the courtroom. “If the defendant is “not that bad of a guy”, then why did he ruthlessly kick an 11 year old child off of his property because of his lack of a limo?”

“I’m sure there’s a very reasonable explanation for that,” Chris said. “Clearly Tetherby set clear parameters for the conditions of attending his party. Parameters that Lincoln didn’t go over. Once again, ignorance of another cannot be used to justify a guilty verdict.”

“Hmm, you’re pretty good at this,” Luan told him.

“Thank you, I’m doing my best,” Chris said.

“Then I hope you won’t mind when the prosecution calls Christopher Alexander Taylor Junior to the stand,” Luan said.

“Wait, me?” Chris asked. “Can you do that?”

“I’ll allow it,” Lola shrugged.

Christopher obliged and took the stand, where he was immediately cross examined by Luan.

“So tell me,” Luan said, “you have a limo of your own, do you not?”

“Uh… no, I don’t,” Chris replied.

Luan cleared her throat and said “Need I remind you that you are under oath?”

“I am?” Chris asked.

Luan simply pointed above Chris’ head, revealing a cartoony projection of the Blue Lantern oath that she had created with her powers and hung over Chris’ head.

“Hey, it’s even my favorite corp’s oath,” Chris observed.

“What does this have to do with anything?!” Asked an irritated Tetherby.

“It’s to make sure that Chris is telling the truth,” Luan said, rolling her eyes before addressing Chris. “So you’re telling me you don’t have a limo?”

“Nope,” Chris answered affirmatively.

“Then what was that limo you showed up in to take my sister to the 8th grade prom?” Luan asked.

“Oh, that was my dad’s limo,” Chris answered.

“I see,” Luan said, “and is this “Dad” that you mentioned the same one that flew our entire family and friends out to Disney World for Christmas?”

“That would be a yes” Chris replied.

“So simply having a limo means you don’t have to be a monster to those who are less fortunate?” Luan asked.

“I suppose not,” Chris agreed.

“Don’t agree with her!” Tetherby shouted. “You’re meant to be defending me!”

“Sorry, but I’m under oath,” Chris shrugged.

“No further questions,” Luan said. Chris went to take his seat before Luan stopped him and whispered some advice. “You’re a witness, you need to cross examine yourself.”

“Oh, right,” Chris said before preparing to take the role of witness and attorney.

As Chris cross examined himself, Tetherby sunk deeper into his seat, facepalming and muttering “I’m doomed.”

Once Chris finished cross examining himself, he rejoined his client.

“Does that conclude your arguments?” Lola asked.

“It does, your honour,” Luan said.

“Very well,” Lola said before asking the jury “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

“We have, your honour,” Lana said, standing up to read the verdict. “We find the defendant, first name unknown Tetherby, guilty on all charges.”

Although he had expected this outcome from the start, Tetherby couldn’t help but feel his heart sink into his stomach as he faced his inevitable doom. He was paralyzed with fear, too afraid to even move. Oh wait, no, the real reason he couldn’t move was because the “chair” he’d been seated in was in actuality a baby Lily, who used tentacle like appendages to restrain him.

“What sentence does the jury recommend?” Lola asked.

“We, the jury, recommend the death penalty,” Lana announced. “Which shall be enacted immediately.”

“No!” Tetherby protested, struggling to escape. “NO! This has to be some mistake!! I didn’t do anything wrong!!!”

“You reap what you sow…” Lucy said ominously as the entire Loud family and Chris approached Tetherby, licking their lips.

“Remind me to thank mom and dad,” Luan said to Lincoln as the two reveled in their victory.

“For what?” Lincoln asked.

“For recommending that I get into law that one time,” Luan replied with a smile. “I never thought that it would come in handy this soon.”

The entire family converged in Tetherby as he let out a bloodcurdling scream and quickly tore to bloody pieces, devouring him rather quickly. They made sure to drag it out for as long as they could, inflicting as much pain as possible on the rich bastard. Tetherby had no one he could turn to to ask for help and in his dying moments, Tetherby wondered if this fate could’ve been avoided if he’d been just a little more courteous.

After they finished eating Tetherby, Lio let out a burp and quipped, “Well, that was fun! Who’s for Chinese?”, before laughing.

Just a few mere hours later, the siblings had made it to Tetherby’s mansion (through the use of a little bit of trickery with Lio disguising himself as the late aristocrat so as to not throw off his many servants) and marched their way through various traps and pitfalls into Tetherby’s safe room. While they were very well aware of Tetherby’s wealth, none of them were expecting the vast amount of riches waiting for them on the other side of the door.

“I don’t think this Tetherby guy ever heard of a bank,” Leni stated as she and Lori began going through stacks upon stacks of cash, gold, and jewelry.

“How lucky is that for us,” Lori said, still in amazement of how much money there was.

“So Linc, are you  _ sure _ this guy wasn’t secretly selling drugs or laundering money or something?” Luna asked.

“Hey, according to him, he inherited his wealth through his family’s tetherball business,” Lincoln said, shrugging and adding “however, it wouldn’t put it past that fat bastard to be making money through nefarious means.”

“Imagine what we could do with all this money,” Lana said, “I could buy three entire landfills with this stash and still have money to spare!”

“And I could buy all the diamond encrusted tiaras and fabulous dresses to my heart’s content,” Lola said, gushing at the thought.

“Maybe I could actually publish that book I’ve been working on,” Lucy said.

“And I could build my own studio with this amount of dough,” Luna said.

“Hold on,” Lincoln said, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You’re right, we do have a hell of a lot of wealth now thanks to that bastard, but I don’t think we should go throwing our money around all Willy nilly.”

“Then what  _ should _ we do?” Lynn asked.

“Good question,” Lori said, “fortunately, Lincoln and I have already put some thought into that.”

“We decided that we could donate some money to charity,” Lincoln said. “This asshole has more than enough to cover it and still have enough wealth to last six generations. Plus, after his lifetime of corrupting and taking advantage of people, it wouldn’t hurt to put some of his money towards the cause of benefiting others.”

“I actually like that line of thinking,” Chris said, “the only question is which charity we should donate to?”

“May I suggest Extra Life 4 Kids,” Lio chimes in, switching from his Tetherby disguise to his natural form. “And maybe Kaboom!, and the I Have A Dream Foundation.”

“All of those are good suggestions,” Lincoln said as he thought it over.

“Okay, not that I mind the whole Good Samaritan thing,” Luna said, “but what’s the point of all this? Half the guys we give the money to might end up being killed and/or eaten by us in the long run.”

“True, but think about it like this,” Lincoln said, “while it’s true that we might kill half the benefactors of the money we give…”

“I’ll say, that’s a  _ half off  _ special for me,” Luan interrupted, giggling and asking “Get it?”

Lincoln pinched the bridge of his nose before regaining his train of thought.

“But if we just sit here on top of this wealth like we’re metaphorical dragons, or physical in Lana’s case, we’d be no better than the human piece of filth that tried to divide and tear us apart,” Lincoln said.

“Fair point,” Lynn acknowledged.

“I mean, it never does hurt to give back to those less fortunate,” Chris mentioned.

“Not to mention that, despite the fact we’re literal monsters,” Lucy said, “nothing would be more insulting than being just as bad as that fat turd we devoured.”

“In that case, I guess we’ve come to an agreement,” Lincoln said, smiling maliciously. “In honor of Lord Tetherby, we’ll show just how philanthropic we can be.”

“But before we do that,” Luna said, “do you think that we can cross a few more people off of our vengeance list?”

“Vengeance list?” Lori asked, “are we literally just going to go around killing people who have wronged us?”

“I don’t see why not,” Lola said. 

“Unfortunately for me, I was robbed of my chance at vengeance,” Lio said sadly, sounding genuinely upset at having been denied the chance to maul Chandler himself.

“If it’s any consolation, you can still _Flip_ _out_ on that scam artist,” Luan said, patting him on the back.

“True,” Lio said, “but that just won’t bring me the same joy. While I certainly hate that old man, it wasn’t nearly as personal as the hatred I had for that prick Chandler. I wouldn’t have even eaten the kid, I would’ve sealed him up behind a wall, Cask of Amontillado style.”

“How un _ Fortunato _ that Maggie and I beat you to the punch,” Luan joked, laughing and asking “Get it?”

For once, Lio did not laugh at his sister’s joke and instead muttered “やれやれだぜ, I’m going to go meet up with my Lieutenant” before walking away.

“Anyways…” Lori said, addressing Luna. “Who did you have in mind for getting even with?”

Luna smiled evilly and said “Let’s Just say LuLu may be making a one night only return…”


End file.
